PayPal, the payments powerhouse owned by eBay, Inc., is nearing 150 million active users, according to eBay CEO John Donahoe.
The company also announced a brand refresh based on a more modernized outlook, including a new focus on mobile and wearables. A marketing push will happen later in 2014 to push the updated brand identity.
EBay weathered a high-profile challenge from investor Carl Icahn during the first quarter of 2014. Icahn wanted PayPal to split from its parent company.
Donahoe said on yesterday’s earnings call that PayPal was partnering with banks, rather than competing against them. He described the company as “a global payments platform that is neutral to whichever funding source you want to use. And we’re driving our technology such that our wallet and other platforms can use PayPal as their underlying payments platform.”
PayPal’s website still lists 143 million active users, but the number is now around 148 billion, with 5.6 billion new users added last quarter. Total active accounts growth was 16%.
Donahoe said that in the first quarter of 2014, PayPal enabled $11 billion in mobile commerce. Total payment volume was up 26%, partially due to the addition of former rival Braintree to the mix. PayPal agreed to acquire Braintree for $800 million in September 2013. He also described the new partnerships with Samsung and Deutsche Telekom:
PayPal is now the first global payment company to enable finger print authentication for payments on the new Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone. And Deutsche Telekom’s 144 million customers will soon be able to make purchases directly to their mobile phone account with PayPal.
A caller asked whether PayPal had considered sweetening its offering with a rewards program. Donahoe replied that PayPal wanted to stay out of the way out of card-based rewards programs and not confuse users by layering its own rewards on top.
Donahoe also said to expect more PayPal marketing in 2014:
Then in marketing, we’ve never really invested much in PayPal marketing. As we said earlier this year, we’re going to increase our level of investment in marketing in PayPal. We didn’t really do much in Q1, but we will be launching our and announcing our new brand campaign and you’ll begin to see us over the coming quarters increase our level of investment in PayPal marketing and you’ll hear more very soon about some of the specifics of it. We’re going to do it in the same kind of softer way we have before, not big splashy big bang, but using digital marketing channels and selective TV and seeing how the business responds. So, we think that’s raising PayPal’s unaided awareness as something that marketing can help facilitate.
Donhaoe touched on PayPal’s credit offerings, including small business loans and BillMeLater as “a relatively new flywheel and in its early stages of growth.” He also said he was excited to have Braintree and Venmo as part of the company.