PayPal’s Third Quarter 2017 Results
Three years ago, we set off on a bold mission to reinvent PayPal as a platform company. We had built a strong brand and legacy as a web-based checkout button. However, we recognized that the rapid digitization of money and the global adoption of mobile technology had created an expansive and exciting opportunity for our company. We understood that the world was rapidly moving towards digital payments. We realized that if we made the right investments to drive a new and expansive strategy, we could reinvent our company.
And so, we set off to create an open, digital commerce platform that connects consumers and merchants around the world in order to make the movement and management of money more simple, secure, accessible and affordable. We worked to create strategic partnerships with companies across multiple ecosystems in order to expand and deepen the value proposition we could offer our customers. And, we re-architected the company around
a core set of values, and a clear mission to democratize financial services for consumers and empower merchants with powerful commerce capabilities, designed for a global and mobile world.
A few hours ago, we reported our financial and operating results from what is perhaps our strongest quarter as a standalone company. While metrics alone can’t tell the full story of a values and mission-driven company, they do provide an important benchmark and show that we are making demonstrable progress towards our vision.
Here is an overview of our third quarter results:
Growing our customer base and engagement on our platform
- We added 8.2 million net new active accounts. That is up almost 90% year over year, and is a record number in our recent history. This brings the total number of active accounts on our platform to more than 218 million (as of September 30th), including more than 200 million consumers and more than 17 million merchants. We now expect to add almost 30 million net new active accounts to the PayPal platform in 2017.
- Even with this record-breaking net new active growth, engagement per active account continues to improve, increasing to 32.8 times per year, up from 30 in the third quarter of 2016.
Driving revenues and generating cash
- Our revenues were up 22% on a currency-neutral basis, totaling $3.24 billion.
- Free cash flow grew by 36% to $841 million in the quarter, and we now expect our free cash flow for the year to be greater than $3 billion.
Mobile leadership
- Mobile payments volume led PayPal’s growth again, increasing 54% to approximately $40 billion in the quarter.
- OneTouch, our mobile-first check out experience, now has more than 70 million consumer accounts opted in, and is accepted by more than 6 million merchant accounts.
- Venmo reported $9.4 billion of payment volume, an increase of 93% year over year, as well as its largest quarter of customer acquisition, demonstrating its growing popularity and network effect.
Living our values
- When hurricanes Irma, Harvey and Maria battered the United States and Caribbean, earthquakes devastated Mexico, and fires destroyed parts of northern California, PayPal was quick to respond. In total to date, we have helped to raise more than $55 million in donations to support the families and communities devastated by these natural disasters.
- Our recently released diversity and inclusion report showed that we have reached 45% gender and ethnic diversity on the PayPal board, and have increased our total number of female vice presidents and above by 20% year-over-year. We have also achieved 100% pay equity in salary across gender on a global basis, and ethnicity in the U.S.
It is a tremendous privilege to be a part of a company that is guided by a clear mission and vision, united by a core set of values, and is committed to making a positive difference for people, families, companies and communities around the world. And yet we have a lot of work in front of us, and much more still to accomplish.
Dan Schulman, President and CEO, PayPal