Advertisement
UK markets close in 3 hours 56 minutes

  • FTSE 100

    8,092.55
    +52.17 (+0.65%)
     

  • FTSE 250

    19,714.85
    -4.52 (-0.02%)
     

  • AIM

    754.89
    +0.20 (+0.03%)
     

  • GBP/EUR

    1.1664
    +0.0020 (+0.17%)
     

  • GBP/USD

    1.2512
    +0.0050 (+0.40%)
     

  • Bitcoin GBP

    50,999.41
    -2,208.29 (-4.15%)
     

  • CMC Crypto 200

    1,354.43
    -28.15 (-2.04%)
     

  • S&P 500

    5,071.63
    +1.08 (+0.02%)
     

  • DOW

    38,460.92
    -42.77 (-0.11%)
     

  • CRUDE OIL

    83.00
    +0.19 (+0.23%)
     

  • GOLD FUTURES

    2,340.40
    +2.00 (+0.09%)
     

  • NIKKEI 225

    37,628.48
    -831.60 (-2.16%)
     

  • HANG SENG

    17,284.54
    +83.27 (+0.48%)
     

  • DAX

    17,966.75
    -121.95 (-0.67%)
     

  • CAC 40

    8,022.96
    -68.90 (-0.85%)
     
Stocks:

Trending tickers

Microsoft, Alphabet, Anglo American, IBM, Astrazeneca, Unilever and Sainsbury's

7 Fun Facts About PayPal (PYPL) As Stock Nears All-Time High

Benjamin Rains
Updated

PayPal Holdings, Inc. PYPL released its first-quarter earnings last week, surpassing expectations on the top and bottom line. Since then, the online payment giant’s stock has popped and now sits comfortably at an all-time high.

The company has certainly come a long way, but even in its earliest days, PayPal was a revolutionary platform.

So how did PayPal make its way to the top of the online payments world? Let’s take a look at some fun facts about the company and its innovative history to find out.

1: $10 Payments Helped Led PayPal to an IPO

PayPal took off like a rocket from humble beginnings by using referrals and small payments of $20, $10, and eventually $5 when users signed up. The company grew at an almost 10% daily rate early on. From March 2000 to the summer 2000, PayPal’s user base jumped from 1 million to 5 million.

ADVERTISEMENT

PayPal went public on Feb. 15, 2002 after the company quickly gained traction in the online consumer world.

2: ebay Bought PayPal Very Early

EBay Inc. EBAY announced in July 2002 that it would acquire PayPal for $1.5 billion. At the time, the move gave the company’s founders the money and the free time to eventually reshape much of the technology world we know today.

3: PayPal’s Founders Transformed Silicon Valley 

Ken Howery, Luke Nosek, Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk founded PayPal in December 1998, when Confinity Inc. and X.com merged to form one online payment platform.

Thiel, along with Howery and Nosek started the venture capital firm Founders Fund in 2005. Thiel’s firm was the first company to help fund Facebook Inc. FB. The Founders Fund also invested in LinkedIn, Yelp, Spotify, AirBnb, and SpaceX.

Musk helped found Tesla Inc. TSLA in 2003. Since then, the electric car company has transformed into one of the most valuable automotive companies in the world, and Musk has added SpaceX and other tech-based ventures to his portfolio (also read: Tesla (TSLA) Stock Up Nearly 4% After Elon Musk's TED Talk).

4: PayPal Employees Changed Online Video Forever

When Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, didn’t know where to share a 19-second video clip of Karim at the San Diego Zoo, the three men started YouTube. On Feb. 14, 2005, Hurley, Chen, and Karim, three early PayPal employees, activated the domain name that changed the Internet forever.

5: PayPal Spun Off from ebay Not Too Long Ago

Spurred by activist investor Carl Icahn, eBay officially spun off PayPal in July 2015, more than a decade after it had acquired the digital payments company. On its first day trading as a public company again, PayPal's market value neared $49 billion—instantly surpassing eBay.

6: Today the Company Boasts 200 Million Active Users

As of PayPal’s earnings report last week, the company has 203 million active account holders. The company gained 6 million new active customers last quarter, which now includes 16 million merchant accounts. PayPal processed 1.7 billion payments—totaling $99 billion—in the first-quarter.

7: PayPal Owns a Millennial Powerhouse 

PayPal owns social P2P mobile payment giant Venmo. The platform, a favorite among millennials, processed $6.8 billion worth of payments in the first-quarter, which was up 114% year-over-year. PayPal acquired the company as part of another deal on the cheap. In 2012, PayPal bought credit card payment processor Braintree for $800 million, which worked with OpenTable, AirBnB, and Uber, and had already bought Venmo.

The Best & Worst of Zacks

Today you are invited to download the full, up-to-the-minute list of 220 Zacks Rank #1 "Strong Buys" free of charge. From 1988 through 2015 this list has averaged a stellar gain of +25% per year. Plus, you may download 220 Zacks Rank #5 "Strong Sells." Even though this list holds many stocks that seem to be solid, it has historically performed 6X worse than the market. See these critical buys and sells free >>


Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
 
eBay Inc. (EBAY): Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Facebook, Inc. (FB): Free Stock Analysis Report
 
PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL): Free Stock Analysis Report
 
Tesla Inc. (TSLA): Free Stock Analysis Report
 
To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
 
Zacks Investment Research