Maybe you're considering getting a PayPal account, or maybe you've had one for a while now. Either way, we're sure you'll find our post on the newest PayPal statistics eye-opening and quite useful.
In a nutshell, you'll discover information on PayPal’s income, employees, users, subsidiaries, and a slew of other interesting facts that prove just how amazing the online payment giant is. So, let’s get started!
PayPal Stats to Keep in Mind in 2022 (Editor’s Choice)
- As of 2021, PayPal has 392 million active users.
- About 80 million use its One Touch feature.
- By the end of 2020, PayPal had 29 million active merchant accounts.
- PayPal conducted 15.4 billion transactions in 2020.
- An average of 41 million transactions are done via PayPal every day.
- PayPal now processes about $2.5 billion in payments each day.
- More than 1.6 million websites use PayPal.
PayPal User Statistics: Widespread Success
PayPal is one of the biggest online payment platforms available in the industry. It supports 100 different currencies, helping people all around the world pay and get paid.
Are you curious about PayPal’s customers? Let’s take a look.
1. PayPal has 392 million active users.
(Source: Statista)
The online payment giant added 67 million people to its user base in the span of a year, reaching 392 million active users in the first quarter of 2021—which is 15 million more than the previous quarter.
The company had just 84 million active users in the beginning of 2010.
2. There are 29 million active PayPal merchant accounts.
(Source: Expanded Ramblings)
Thanks to PayPal, doing business online is painless for merchants. Many retailers like the platform’s lack of contracts and monthly fees, as well as its easy configuration.
Plus, PayPal provides a variety of features to make online shopping more convenient and secure for its clients—something that ends up working to merchants’ advantage, too.
3. More than 300,000 British people use PayPal every day.
(Source: Statista)
Breaking down the number of PayPal users by country, the UK and Germany are at the top of the European list, each with more than 300,000 daily active users.
They are followed by France (96,124), Italy (71,811), Russia (69,306), and Spain (55,000).
4. More than 1.6 million websites use PayPal.
(Source: Similar Tech)
The latest PayPal statistics show that approximately 30% of those websites are from the US, while the rest of them come from all over the world. The leading countries are the UK (109,291), Germany (81,910), Italy (58,174), and France (55,238).
5. Customers are 54% more likely to buy when an online store accepts PayPal.
(Source: Total Retail)
A recent study showed that consumers around the world are more willing to make an online purchase when the retailer accepts PayPal as a payment method.
In fact, 59% of PayPal customers have aborted a transaction because the platform wasn’t a checkout option.
6. PayPal handles 22% of all online transactions in the US.
(Source: Statista)
PayPal’s percentage of online transactions shows how popular the digital payment platform has become. Just in the first quarter of 2021, PayPal processed more than 3.74 billion payments.
7. More than 20% of US PayPal users are older than 55.
(Source: Statista)
Grouping American PayPal users by age, 25% fall between the ages of 25 and 34, while 22% are older than 55. People in the 45-54 age group account for 20%, the 35- to 44-year-olds take up 19%. The remaining 14% are adults no older than 24.
8. US PayPal users have an average balance of $485.
(Source: Logica Research)
According to a recent survey, Americans tend to keep close to $500 in their PayPal account, but just $196 in cash. In fact, 19% of people in the US prefer to keep their money on PayPal than in the bank.
PayPal Revenue: A Rewarding Business
Thanks to millions of users, PayPal is earning billions of dollars every year. Let’s take a quick look at some impressive PayPal stats that highlight the company’s profit, revenue, and growth over the years.
9. PayPal processed 15.4 billion transactions in 2020.
(Source: Business of Apps)
PayPal’s number of yearly transactions seems to double every three years, going from 3.2 billion in 2013 to 6.1 billion in 2016, all the way to 12.4 billion in 2019.
In 2020, people made roughly 42.1 million PayPal transactions per day.
10. PayPal generated $21.4 billion in 2020.
(Source: Business of Apps)
PayPal’s annual revenue was “only” $3.5 billion in 2010, but since then it’s been steadily increasing throughout the years. It hit the $10 billion mark in 2016, made it to $15.4 billion in 2018, and ultimately surpassed $20 billion in 2020.
11. PayPal earned $4.2 billion in 2020.
(Source: Business of Apps)
There’s only been one time in PayPal’s history when its yearly profit decreased.
In 2014, the company reported a $400 million net income, which was $500 million less than 2013’s figure. One year later, the online payment giant was back on track with earnings of $1.2 billion.
PayPal’s profit reached $2 billion in 2018 and then doubled in 2020.
12. PayPal’s net income was nearly $1.1 billion in Q1 2021.
(Source: Statista)
This represents a decrease from the previous quarter ($1.5 billion) but a pronounced increase from 2020’s Q1, when the company reported a profit of just $84 million.
PayPal statistics reveal that during the first quarter of 2021, the company processed $285 billion in payment volume and added 14.5 million active users to its ranks.
PayPal Industry: Competing and Thriving
The online payment industry is rapidly growing. Demand is high and competition is tough—Google Pay, Venmo, Payoneer, and Amazon Pay all want their fair share.
Let’s take a quick look at some PayPal facts and see how the company fares among competitors.
13. PayPal was founded in 1998.
(Source: TheStreet)
Tech entrepreneurs Peter Thiel and Max Lavchin wanted to provide consumers and companies with an easy, low-cost digital payments service. And that’s how Confinity was born. (Yeah, they changed the name later on.)
14. eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion.
(Source: CNET)
The deal was made in 2002 (the same year PayPal went public). eBay used its new acquisition to substitute its own online payment service, Billpoint. Thirteen years later, PayPal separated from eBay and became an independent company.
So, who owns PayPal now?
The Vanguard Group is its biggest shareholder (7.48%), followed by BlackRock Fund Advisors (4.51%).
15. PayPal has more than 25,000 employees.
(Source: Craft)
PayPal has 45 offices located across 24 countries and employs around 26,500 people.
But where is PayPal based?
The corporate headquarters are located in San Jose, California, whereas its main operations center is in Nebraska.
16. Venmo reached 52 million users in 2020.
(Source: Business of Apps)
Venmo has been one of PayPal’s subsidiaries since 2015. Its user base has been increasing exponentially over the last few years—Venmo’s three million users (2015) became 10 million in 2017, and then turned into 40 million by 2019.
But it’s not only the company’s user base that’s growing. In 2020, Venmo’s annual payment volume came close to $160 billion, while its revenue reached $450 million (which is $150 million higher than 2019’s figure).
So, PayPal vs Venmo? Not really. It’s more of a PayPal & Venmo type of situation.
17. PayPal bought Honey Science for $4 billion in 2019.
(Source: Forbes)
At the time of purchase, Honey had about 17 million monthly active users and generated more than $1 billion in savings. With the Honey acquisition, PayPal is moving beyond the checkout part of the purchase process and is looking to improve its users’ shopping experience as a whole.
At this point you might be wondering, what other companies does PayPal own?
Apart from Venmo and Honey, PayPal owns Xoom, Braintree, Hyperwallet, Zettle, and Similty.
18. PayPal’s market share was 54.34%.
(Source: Datanyze)
Approximately 500 thousand websites use PayPal in the US for their daily transactions, thus enabling the platform to take more than half of the digital payment market share.
Stripe is PayPal’s biggest competitor (19.14%), followed by Amazon Pay (3.88%).
19. Payoneer generated more than $100 million in 2021.
(Source: Yahoo)
The Payoneer vs PayPal battle has been going on for years, although it’s recently become more interesting. Payoneer’s revenue might not be as high as PayPal’s, but its growth rate has been quite impressive.
The company’s revenue was $100.6 million in 2021’s Q1, which is 23% higher than 2020’s first-quarter figure. Plus, Payoneer’s transaction volume increased to $13.3 billion, which is 61% higher than 2020’s $8.3 billion.
20. About 80 million people use PayPal’s One Touch feature.
(Source: Business of Apps)
PayPal is always searching for new ways to improve its customer experience—and its One Touch service is a clear winner.
This useful feature stores the customer’s login information in a given device, allowing them to shop faster by avoiding the hassle of signing in for every transaction.
Looking at the latest PayPal stats, about 80 million users have activated One Touch and more than seven million merchants support this PayPal feature.
Wrap Up
PayPal is consistently producing excellent results, its client base is expanding, and its revenue is growing, as demonstrated by the most recent PayPal statistics.
Despite so many rivals coming up, PayPal has managed to stay on top and keep providing first-rate services to its customers.
With so many remote and independent workers, retailers, and experts relying on the online payment giant on a daily basis, PayPal will undoubtedly be here to serve us for many years to come.
Sources
Unaware that life beyond the internet exists, Nick is poking servers and control panels, playing with WordPress add-ons, and helping people get the hosting that suits them.
