PayPal Holdings Inc.'s profit and revenue surged as the e-commerce company's user base and payment volume increased. PayPal's figures for the quarter exceeded the analysts' predictions.
In particular, PayPal shares increased by 2 percent ($40.90) in extended trading on April 27. The increased rate was compared to last year's eBay Inc. spin-off.
PayPal's active user base also surged by 11.5 percent, finishing with 184 million active users in the first quarter. As per FactSet StreetAccount, the average numbers estimated by analysts were 182.8 million.
PayPal also finished with a 28.6 percent increase in total payment volumes, which amounted to a whopping $81.06 billion.
In the first quarter, the total number of processed PayPal transactions were 1.41 billion. Analysts estimated an average of 1.39 billion.
"When you have 184 million active accounts, moving that customer engagement number even one point from quarter to quarter is significant," said Dan Schulman, PayPal's CEO who joined in September 2014.
Schulman shared that the company's recent performance can be traced to its renewed focus on customer engagement improvements. Early this year, PayPal app's got a facelift.
The redesigned PayPal app encapsulates the company's vision on the "future of money." The app had been redesigned to become simpler but more personal for users, enabling them to manage their finances even on the go.
"We are on track to expand to more merchants and open the service to our full Venmo customer base in the second half of this year," added Schulman.
PayPal acquired Venmo in 2013, another offering that allows users to pay for services and goods within other apps. In January, Venmo rolled out a limited release of its payment solutions to vendors.
The January launch allowed users to purchase meals using the delivery app Munchery and buy game tickets using the ticketing app Gametime. According to Schulman, the Venmo pilot program now has about 550,000 users.
To stay ahead of rising competitors such as Samsung Electronics, Square and Apple, PayPal is forging ties with airlines, retailers and other brands to push their steady growth further.
