PayPal Holdings, Inc. Revenue & Financials

The most revealing number in PayPal's financials isn't revenue or net income — it's the gap between total payment volume growth and revenue growth. TPV grew roughly 10% in FY2025 to approximately $1.5 trillion. Revenue grew 4.3% to $33.2 billion. That divergence is the take-rate compression story in one data point: PayPal is moving more money but capturing less of each dollar. Net income of $5.2 billion (15.7% margin) looks respectable in isolation. But the trajectory matters more than the snapshot. Q4 2025 was ugly enough to get a CEO fired: revenue of $8.68B and EPS of $1.23 both missed estimates, the stock dropped 18% in a day, and the board concluded Alex Chriss wasn't moving fast enough. Q1 2026 under interim leadership showed stabilization — $8.35B in revenue (up 7.2% YoY, beating estimates by 3.8%), adjusted EPS of $1.34 (beating by $0.07). The patient isn't dying. But the market isn't paying for survival. Revenue per employee runs about $1.23 million across the roughly 27,000-person workforce (down from 30,000+ through layoffs). That's efficient for a technology company but unremarkable for a payments business where the product is largely software. The real efficiency question is whether PayPal can grow revenue without proportionally growing headcount — and whether the layoffs have cut muscle along with fat. The stock at ~$44 per share ($42B market cap) prices PayPal like a slow-growth utility. For comparison: the company generated $5.2B in net income on a $42B market cap — that's a P/E of roughly 8x. Either the market believes earnings will decline, or it's pricing in permanent multiple compression. Revenue has grown every single year since the 2015 spin-off ($9.2B → $33.2B). The company isn't shrinking. The market just doesn't believe the growth is worth paying for anymore.