The stock price of PayPal Holdings (PYPL 0.64%) was up over 6% in early trading Thursday morning after the digital and mobile payments leader posted blowout earnings for the fourth quarter.
Net income jumped 209% in the fourth quarter year over year to $1.56 billion, or $1.32 per share. Operating income climbed 21% in the quarter to $963 million, while net revenue soared 23% to $6.12 billion.
In the fourth quarter, PayPal saw total payment volume (TPV) increase 39% year over year to $277 billion. The mobile payments app Venmo processed $47 million in TPV in the quarter, a 60% year over year increase. Further, the company added 16 million net new accounts.
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It closed out a record year for PayPal as net income increased 70% to $4.2 billion, or $3.58 per share, over the year before. Revenue was up 20.7% to $21.4 billion, while operating income gained 21% to $3.3 billion. TPV surged 31% to $936 billion for the full year over 2019 levels, with Venmo accounting for $159 billion in TPV, up 56%.
Also, the company added 72.7 million net new accounts in 2020. Total active accounts are now at 377 million -- up 24% in 2020.
Free cash flow increased 50% in Q4 to $1.1 billion and 46% for the full year to $5 billion.
"PayPal delivered record performance in 2020 as businesses of all sizes have digitized in the wake of the pandemic. In this historic year, we released more products than ever before and have dramatically scaled our acceptance worldwide, giving our 377 million consumer and merchant accounts even more reasons to use our platform," President and CEO Dan Schulman said in the company's release.
In their outlook for 2021, PayPal officials said they expect TPV to grow in the high 20% range, with revenue up about 19% over 2020 levels.
