PayPal shares fall as sales outlook misses Wall Street expectations

PayPal Holdings Inc shares fell almost 4 percent in after-hours trading on Wednesday after the online payments company forecast revenue for the current quarter short of Wall Street`s expectations.

For the fourth quarter that ended in December, revenue rose to $4.23 billion from $3.74 billion, just missing analysts` average estimate of $4.24 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

For the first quarter, PayPal said it expects revenue between $4.08 billion and $4.13 billion, falling short of analysts` average $4.16 billion estimate. The company reaffirmed its full year outlook.

Excluding one-time items, the digital payments company earned 69 cents per share, beating the average analyst estimate of 67 cents.

Net income fell to $584 million, or 49 cents per share, in the fourth quarter, from $620 million, or 50 cents per share, a year earlier.

Shares of the San Jose, California based company were down 3.85 percent at $88.86 after the bell on Wednesday.

PayPal separated from e-commerce platform eBay Inc in 2015 and has since focussed on broadening the types of services it offers to consumers and merchants, making a slew of acquisitions and partnerships.

The company added a record 13.8 million new active accounts in the fourth quarter, compared to an increase of 8.7 million a year earlier. Around 2.9 million of those accounts were added through acquisitions.

PayPal processed $164 billion in payments over the period, up 23 percent from a year earlier.

Venmo, its peer-to-peer payment app popular with younger consumers, processed $19 billion of payments in the fourth quarter, up 80 percent from the same quarter a year ago.

(This article has not been edited by Zeebiz editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)