While Square gets most of the hype in the mobile payments world, eBay’s PayPal business remains strong.
PayPal’s earnings were up 20 percent for the second quarter of 2013, reaching $1.6 billion compared to $1.35 billion last year, eBay announced in its earnings report today. Additionally, PayPal added 4.7 million active registered accounts during the quarter, bringing its total customer count to 132 million (a 17 percent bump last year).
Perhaps most tellingly, PayPal’s total payment volume increased by 24 percent in the quarter to reach $43 billion. In comparison, Square’s payment volume hit $15 billion in May on an annualized basis (meaning the figure is a projection based on current figures).
Now that PayPal has clocked in its fifth consecutive quarter of accelerated growth, it looks like eBay’s fastest-growing business segment. EBay’s Marketplaces division (its core auction service) and Enterprise segment grew their revenues by 10 percent and 11 percent, respectively. PayPal accounted for 40 percent of eBay’s $3.9 billion Q2 revenues, though Marketplaces still accounts for more (51 percent) with its $2 billion in sales.
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At this rate though, PayPal may soon end up making more money for eBay than the auctions its known for.
During eBay’s earnings call today, chief executive John Donahoe also revealed that PayPal’s merchant services were up 29 percent. PayPal also kicked off its program to kill cash registers this month that offers merchants free debit, credit, check, and PayPal processing when they adopt the service.
