Popular payment app Venmo has ushered in 40 million users to the platform, its parent company PayPal announced on Wednesday.
This is the first time PayPal has disclosed user numbers for the millennial-focused, peer-to-peer app.
In its first-quarter earnings report, PayPal said it now has a total 277 million total customer accounts — including 22 million merchant accounts. Total payments volume for Venmo grew 73 percent year over year to $21 billion in the first quarter, the company said. PayPal said Venmo is still on pace to do $100 billion in payment volume this year.
“We are confident in the 2019 targets we outlined last quarter as we continue to leverage our wide range of unique assets in our global digital payments platform,” PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said in a press release.
Square, run by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, reported 15 million monthly active users for its rival Cash App as of December.
PayPal reported better-than-expected first-quarter earnings after the market close Wednesday. The company reported adjusted earnings of 78 cents per share vs. the 68 cents forecast by Refinitiv. Revenue for the quarter was in line with Wall Street’s $4.13 billion estimates.
Total payment volume — a closely watched metric for the company — came in at $161 billion, a 25 percent increase year over year. This was below the $163 billion analysts polled by FactSet had been expecting. Shares of PayPal fell roughly 2 percent in after-hours trading.
The finance app also operates like a social network. It lets users comment on payments and see who and what friends are spending on. The app was bought by BrainTree for $26 million. BrainTree was later bought by PayPal.
Venmo has yet to become a money-maker for its parent company. PayPal has not given an exact target date for profitability.
“The next phase for us is to get Venmo to break even. And that’s not something that’s going to happen in the next quarter or two, but there’s line of sight to that with what we’re doing,” PayPal CFO John Rainey said on last quarter’s call.
