PayPal Q1 Transaction Revenue Rose 33% YOY as Total Revenue, EPS Topped Views

PayPal's (PYPL) Q1 transaction revenue rose 33% to $5.62 billion from $4.22 billion in the year-earlier period as the payments giant posted better-than-expected earnings and sales. The company boosted its year forecasts.

Quarter over quarter, transaction revenue fell slightly to the $5.68 billion reported in the holiday-spending boosted Q4.

Part of PayPal's transaction revenue was from the company's crypto buy, sell, and hold product. The payments giant also added 14.5 million in net new active accounts, down from 16 million added in the last quarter. (The company excludes crypto payments from total payment volume.) 

Overall, the payments giant beat expectations with Q1 adjusted earnings of $1.22, well above the consensus estimate of $1.01. Overall revenue rose to $6.03 billion, north of expectations for $5.91 billion.

PayPal also raised year forecasts for net new accounts, total payment volume, revenue and earnings.

Q1 2021 is the second quarter PayPal has reported earnings including results from its crypto buying and selling product. The company has reported in the past that customers who purchased crypto through the platform have been logging into PayPal twice as often as they were before they could buy crypto. 

Paypal CEO Dan Schulman in Wednesday's earnings call said that PayPal has had "several positive conversations" about cryptocurrency and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) with central banks, regulators, and government officials around the world.

"This whole idea around establishing a digital currency and blockchain business unit inside PayPal, let's us think about what the financial system is going to start to move towards and how can we be a shaper of that, a leader within that, and not just a reactor to how that's happening," Schulman said.

The CEO also noted that PayPal's acquisition of Curv closed officially last month.

In April, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced its users could buy cryptocurrency using their PayPal accounts, although the fees on the PayPal feature in Coinbase are significantly higher than other ways of purchasing crypto from the exchange. Also in April, PayPal expanded crypto trading to its Venmo payments app.

This story is developing and will be updated.

UPDATE (May 5, 21:19 UTC): Updates with earnings, revenue.
UPDATE (May 5, 21:19 UTC): Update to lead with YOY transaction revenue.