Mobile payments boost PayPal profit for Q1

Online payments system PayPal (PYPL) reported better than expected first quarter profit and revenue results beating consensus estimates. Revenue came in at $3.68 billion, jumping 24% from a year earlier, and profit surged 33% to $511 million or $0.42 per share. The double digit increase in revenue was aided by a 32% spike in total payments volume and higher new active accounts. Excluding special items, company’s earnings swelled 29% to $0.57 per share. PayPal shares opened up 3% on Thursday.

The San Jose, California-based company added 8.1 million active accounts in the first quarter, with net new accounts increasing 35%. Payment transactions touched 2.2 billion, increasing 25% from a year ago. On a TTM basis, the company saw 34.7 payment transactions per active account.

PayPal’s initiatives to monetize its Venmo customer base seems to be paying off with the company’s social payments platform, processing more than $40 billion of total payment volume over the year. In the first quarter, total payment volume of Venmo shot up 80% to more than $12 billion of total payment volume.

For fiscal year 2018, PayPal expects revenue to increase 16% to 18% at current spot rates translating to a range of $15.20 billion to $15.40 billion. Reported EPS is expected in the range of $1.73 to $1.76, while excluding special items, the company expects earnings per share in the range of $2.31 to $2.34.

For second quarter 2018, PayPal is seeing revenue growth rate of 21% to 22% at current spot rates translating to a range of $3.78 billion to $3.83 billion. On a reported basis, EPS is expected in the range of $0.41 to $0.43 and excluding special items, earnings per share is targeted in the range of $0.54 to $0.56.