Post eBay separation, PayPal to focus on India expansion

PayPal will focus its energies in the payment space and look for opportunities to expand post separation from eBay.

Addressing the media, Anupam Pahuja, General Manager (Technology), PayPal Asia Pacific, said being only a payment company will provide it opportunities to partner with other organisations for expansion.

PayPal separated from eBay on July 20 and became an independent public company trading on Nasdaq Stock Market, listed under the symbol ‘PYPL’.

The company, which has a market cap of $49 billion, was brought by eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. Pahuja said that despite the separation, it would receive 22 per cent of its revenue from eBay for the next five years, as per an agreement between the two companies.

In 2014, PayPal processed $235 billion in total payment volume and generated more than $8 billion in revenue. The company serves more than 169 million active customer accounts and 10 million merchants in 203 markets.

Pahuja said the increase in the number of Internet-ready electronic devices in the past few years has transformed the way payments are made.

“Mobile payments, which were negligible, have grown to 25 per cent in the past 3-4 years,” he said. Of the 4 billion payments that happened in 2014 using PayPal, mobile payments alone accounted for 1 billion.

Stating that PayPal owns $61 billion in the online transaction space worth $750 billion, Pahuja said with proliferation of electronic devices, the global online transaction space could grow up to $25 trillion.

Having 10 per cent of the work force and the largest technology centre in India, Pahuja said the company sees huge potential and has plans to recruit more talent.