PayPal Boosts Revenue Outlook on Expanded Shopper Activity

PayPal CEO Dan Schulman’s campaign to expand the payments platform beyond websites and into stores keeps impressing investors, according to Bloomberg.

The company projected revenue of $3.57 billion to $3.63 billion in the current quarter, showing the PayPal is persuading more shoppers to use the platform as a digital wallet and a payment button for online orders. Analysts on average estimated $3.56 billion. Shares gained as much as 6.3 percent in extended trading, continuing investor confidence that has propelled the company’s stock 70 percent higher this year.

Schulman’s latest move has been expanding PayPal’s Venmo service beyond peer-to-peer payments like splitting a restaurant tab to a method for paying merchants directly. Venmo is now available at more than 2 million U.S. retailers, PayPal said. The service handled transactions worth $9 billion in the third quarter, almost double from the period a year earlier, the company said in a statement.

Adjusted profit in the current quarter will be 50 cents to 52 cents a share, PayPal said. Analysts projected profit of 51 cents, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. PayPal reported third-quarter adjusted earnings of 46 cents per share on revenue of $3.24 billion. Analysts on average estimated profit of 44 cents on revenue of $3.18 billion.

Total payment volume increased 30 percent to $114 billion in the period. Active customer accounts were 218 million in the third quarter, an increase from 210 million in the second quarter and 192 million a year earlier. Transactions per active account were 32.8 in the trailing 12 months, up 9 percent, slower than the 10 percent growth in the second quarter.