(New York) Among the big winners of the pandemic, the online payment service provider PayPal reported slow growth in the fourth quarter on Tuesday and gave forecasts deemed disappointing by the market.
Posted at 8:00 p.m.
In electronic trading after the close of Wall Street, the title fell 17.35% to 145.29 dollars.
Above analysts’ expectations, at $6.91 billion, the figure recorded a growth of 13%, similar to that of the third quarter but significantly lower than the previous quarters.
The growth of transactions placed by PayPal continued to slow (+23%), after having reached up to 50% in the first three months of 2021, as did that of active accounts, which posted its weakest pace in almost 5 years (3and quarter of 2017).
In the last quarter of 2021, the group posted net earnings per share of $1.11, slightly lower than the $1.12 expected by analysts.
But it is on the forecasts that investors have frankly winced. PayPal announced an expected profit of 87 cents per share in the first quarter, while the market was expecting so far on 1.16 dollars.
On the revenue side, the group anticipates growth of between 15 and 17% over the year 2022, against more than 17% forecast by analysts.
During the conference call presenting the results, CEO Daniel Schulman called 2021 a “difficult” year, referring in particular to eBay.
PayPal and eBay were part of the same group for 13 years after the acquisition of the first by the second, in 2002. Since the split in 2015, PayPal has sought to reduce its dependence on the e-commerce platform, but has not yet fully succeeded.
However, last June, eBay decided to no longer allow sellers on its site to be able to use PayPal, taking the payment service provider by surprise. According to Daniel Schulman, the decision deprived PayPal of approximately $1.4 billion in revenue last year.
The exit from the eBay universe will also be felt in 2022, warned the leader, citing a shortfall of 600 million dollars in turnover over the year.
Overall, the CEO sees 2022 as a “year of transformation and investment, as we transition out of extraordinary growth driven by the pandemic-related lockdowns, as well as the separation from eBay .