PYMNTS Daily Data Dive: PayPal’s Q3 Topped Off With Alibaba

Third-quarter earnings were a slam-dunk for PayPal, which beat the street and announced a global partnership that bounced the stock price in after-hours trading. PayPal’s share price had been declining in early October, but the impressive numbers turned that around.

But the biggest announcement, and perhaps the news that changed the direction of the share price, was that the company has struck an expanded agreement with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. that makes PayPal a one-click payment option on the Chinese e-commerce giant’s AliExpress marketplace. Dan Schulman, president and CEO of PayPal, emphasized that the partnership demonstrates the importance of an independent PayPal, separate from eBay, in the global payments and commerce space.  “They [eBay] have great strengths with merchants inside China, who are already a major cross-border player in the Chinese corridor. So that match would never happen have we not been an independent third party. And that’s happening with numerous retailers as well, especially as we expand our value proposition now to really appeal to a mobile-centric world, that one retailer after another of all sizes are thinking about,” said Schulman.

Here are the numbers:

$2.7 billion | PayPal’s net revenue; up 18 percent from last year

$87 billion | PayPal’s transaction volume; up 25 percent since last year

$323 million | PayPal’s net income; up 7 percent from last year

192 million | The number of active customer accounts worldwide, an increase of 11 percent

2.9% | The increase in PayPal’s share price in after-hour’s trading