PayPal ends year with a jump in revenue

PayPal credits partnerships for its revenue increase during the fourth quarter, as well as throughout 2016.



The digital payments company reported a 17% jump in revenue to $2.981 billion for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2016. During this timeframe, PayPal also added 5.4 million active customer accounts; and 1.8 billion payment transactions, an increase of 23%. The company also reported $99 billion in total payment volume (TPV), up 22%.



Results were equally positive for 2016, as a whole. PayPal reported it has 197 million customer accounts, up 10% with growth of 18 million active customer accounts. The digital payments company also reported 6.1 billion payment transactions, up 24% from 2015. Over the 12 months, the company reported 31 payment transactions per active account, up 13% from a year ago.



From a mobile perspective, PayPal processed $99 billion in TPV in the fourth quarter, representing growth of 22%. PayPal processed $31 billion in mobile TPV, up 53%, representing 31% of TPV for the quarter. Venmo, the company’s social payments platform, processed $5.6 billion of TPV, up 126%.



In the five days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, PayPal pro-cessed more than $2 billion in mobile payments, and mobile accounted for one-third of overall TPV during this period.



“PayPal ended 2016 with another strong quarter of financial results. We extended our industry leadership by generating 18 million active cus-tomer accounts, with greater engagement than ever before,” said Dan Schulman, president and CEO of PayPal. “We innovated across our mer-chant and consumer value propositions and extended our lead in mobile payments.”



The company also reported it “transformed our market opportunity with a series of strategic partnerships with networks, financial institutions, technology companies, and mobile carriers,” he added. Among these partnerships include agreements with global card issuer Citi and Fidelity National Information Services (FIS).



Earlier this month, PayPal also announced a strategic agreement with Discover Financial Services, making it easier for PayPal customers to use Discover as a funding option within the PayPal wallet, and let eligible customers pay with their Discover Cashback Bonus.