Four Key Takeaways from our First Quarter Earnings
Earlier today, we announced PayPal’s financial and operating results for the first quarter of 2019. This was strong quarter, with growth in revenue, net new active accounts and engagement across our platform. Mobile continues to fuel our growth as OneTouch, Venmo and core peer-to-peer payments deliver significant momentum. We launched new strategic relationships with some of the world’s largest marketplaces and platforms including Instagram and MercadoLibre. I’d like to highlight four key themes from the quarter.
Consumer and Engagement Growth
A highlight of the first quarter was the growth we drove in both net new actives and customer engagement on our platform.We added 9.3 million net new actives, up 15% versus the same period last year, and saw a 9% increase in engagement, to 38 transactions per active account. We now have 277 million active accounts on our platform, with approximately 255 million consumers and 22 million merchants.
Continuing to Lead the Peer-to-Peer Payments Revolution
Our relentless focus on our customers delivered results across our services and products. Peer-to-peer payments (P2P), a large source of net new active accounts on our platform, continued to experience strong growth. Total P2P volume for the quarter was $42 billion, growing 41% compared to the first quarter of 2018. We are eliminating fees on our P2P services in 25 European markets, enabling sending, receiving and requesting money from friends and family to be done quickly and at no cost.
At Venmo, total payment volume increased 73% from a year ago to $21 billion. We end the quarter with over 40 million active Venmo accounts, and significant progress on all of our monetization efforts.
Partnering to Accelerate Growth
In the past few years, we have announced more than 40 partnerships with leaders across the tech and financial industries. Through new and expanded strategic relationships, we expect to expand our global footprint and create innovative payment experiences for our joint customers.
Last month, we extended our partnership with Facebook to support the payments infrastructure for Instagram Shopping, starting in the U.S. This agreement builds on a deep platform integration with Facebook, which also includes product experiences within Facebook Messenger and Donations.
Through our partnership with JPMorgan Chase, PayPal is one of the first companies to introduce real-time payments for both consumers and merchants in the U.S., part of our ongoing effort to offer our customers faster and more flexible access to their funds. In addition, our investment in MercadoLibre – one of the largest online commerce and payments ecosystems in Latin America – was a meaningful development in our drive to increase our international scale and scope.
Our Commitment to Social and Environmental Impact
In a few days, we will release our second annual Global Impact Report, which demonstrates our 2018 progress in driving social efforts, supporting our communities, and managing our environmental impact. I believe that companies must stand up and take responsibility to address many of the issues that face every global citizen. Your commitment and engagement helped inspire these efforts and continues to drive our work.
We look forward continuing to leverage our wide range of unique assets with the goal of strengthening our two-sided platform.
Dan Schulman, President and CEO, PayPal