PayPal jumps on upbeat Q3, becomes China’s maiden foreign payments platform

PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL) on Wednesday reported third-quarter revenues of $4.38 billion, up 19% year-over-year, narrowly surpassing Wall Street prediction of $4.35 billion.

Adjusted net income for the quarter grew to 61 cents per share from 58 cents per share last year. Analysts had, on an average, expected Q3 earnings of 52 cents per share.

Net new active accounts of 9.8 million brought the total active accounts to 295 million accounts, up 16%. Payment transactions surged 25% to 3.1 billion, and $179 billion in total payment volume was up 25%.

PYPL shares jumped 4.5% immediately following the announcement. The stock, which is yet to fully recover from the downtrend that followed the second-quarter results, trades slightly above the $100-mark ahead of the earnings release. The shares have gained 16% since the beginning of the year. 

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Outlook

For full-year 2019, PayPal expects revenue to grow 15% on an FX-neutral basis, to a range of $17.70 – $17.76 billion. For the same period, GAAP EPS is anticipated in the range of $2.03 – $2.06 and non-GAAP EPS in the range of $3.06 – $3.08.

CEO Dan Schulman said, “This quarter we announced that we will be the first foreign payments platform to be licensed to provide online payment services in China, a very significant development that has the potential to meaningfully expand our addressable market.”

Last week, American Express (AXP) said its third-quarter earnings grew in double digits to $2.08 per share as revenues rose to about $11 billion helped by an increase in cardmember spending

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