Calls
Source: S&P Capital IQ transcripts via Xpressfeed · latest indexed call 2026-05-05 · generated 2026-07-25.
Latest call digest
PayPal Holdings, Inc., Q1 2026 Earnings Call, May 05, 2026 · 2026-05-05T12:00:00
Q1 2026 earnings call — May 5, 2026. This was Enrique Lores's first call as CEO, after Alex Chriss's exit and a brief interim period under CFO/COO Jamie Miller. The prepared remarks were less a quarter recap than a strategic reset: Lores framed his early observations (strong assets, years of technology underinvestment, too much organizational complexity), announced a reorganization into three lines of business — Checkout Solutions & PayPal, Consumer Financial Services & Venmo, and Payment Services & Crypto — and set a cost-savings target of "at least $1.5 billion of gross run rate savings over the next 2 to 3 years" from structural realignment plus AI adoption.
The Q&A reality was more sober than the reorganization optimism. Reported numbers were mixed: TPV accelerated to 11% at spot / 8% currency-neutral (over $460 billion), but online branded checkout TPV grew only 2% currency-neutral (up from 1% last quarter), transaction margin dollars ex interest grew 3%, and non-GAAP EPS rose just 1% to $1.34. Management reiterated full-year 2026 guidance but guided a notably weak second quarter — the toughest year-over-year comparison of the year — with transaction margin dollars down ~3% and non-GAAP EPS down roughly 9%. Quarter-to-date branded checkout was running at the low end of the full-year range, with softer travel and muted Europe. The clearest stated commitments were the $1.5 billion savings program and the reiterated 3-point investment headwind to transaction margin dollars.
Participant coverage from the latest call.
| Group | Participants | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Management | Operator; Steven Winoker — Chief Investor Relations Officer, PayPal Holdings, Inc.; Enrique Lores — President, CEO & Director, PayPal Holdings, Inc.; Jamie Miller — Chief Financial & Operating Officer and Executive VP, PayPal Holdings, Inc. | 4 |
| Analysts | Harshita Rawat — Senior Research Associate, Bernstein Institutional Services LLC, Research Division; Timothy Chiodo — Analyst, UBS Investment Bank, Research Division; James Faucette — MD & Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley, Research Division; Darrin Peller — MD & Senior Analyst, Wolfe Research, LLC; Sanjay Sakhrani — Managing Director, Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods, Inc., Research Division; Jason Kupferberg — Managing Director & Senior Equity Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division; Tien-Tsin Huang — Senior Analyst, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division; Daniel Perlin — Analyst, RBC Capital Markets, Research Division; Bryan Keane — Research Analyst, Citigroup Inc., Research Division | 9 |
Curated latest-call exchanges; one row per analyst topic.
| Analyst | Firm | Topic | What changed in Q&A |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harshita Rawat | Bernstein | Branded checkout in Europe | Pressed on European weakness and realistic branded growth versus e-commerce; management cited macro softness, competitive intensity and market-leader normalization in the U.K. and Germany, and leaned on country-level execution. |
| Timothy Chiodo | UBS | $1.5B cost-savings program | Probed where the savings come from, flagging the large customer-support line as possible low-hanging fruit; management pointed to structural realignment plus AI in customer support and technology development. |
| James Faucette | Morgan Stanley | Reinvestment vs. capital return | Asked how savings will be split between reinvestment and buybacks and what KPIs would prove it; Lores deferred specific proof points and per-business KPIs to coming quarters. |
| Darrin Peller | Wolfe Research | Asset review / possible divestitures | Asked directly whether Venmo or Braintree could be sold; Lores said the plan is to keep and invest in all three core businesses, citing customer cross-sell, technology and risk synergies. |
| Sanjay Sakhrani | KBW | Second-half risk from fuel prices | Asked whether persistent higher fuel prices threaten the second half beyond the Q2 guide; Miller reiterated full-year guidance and pointed to easier comps ahead. |
| Jason Kupferberg | Wells Fargo | Checkout button rollout | Asked about progress on the fully optimized checkout button; Lores said 45% of non-vaulted customers now see the simplified pay experience but framed it as one lever among many. |
Theme tracker
Themes are curator-classified across supplied calls.
| Theme | Status | Quarters mentioned | Read-through |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online branded checkout turnaround | persisted | Q2 2023, Q4 2023, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026 | The single most-discussed topic on every call for three years. Held mid-single-digit currency-neutral growth through 2024-mid-2025, then decelerated sharply to 1% in Q4 2025 before edging to 2% in Q1 2026 — the promised inflection has not arrived. |
| Venmo monetization | persisted | Q3 2023, Q1 2024, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026 | A consistent bright spot — debit card and Pay with Venmo adoption drove revenue to roughly $1.7 billion in 2025, up about 20%; management repeatedly called it early-innings on ARPA. |
| Buy Now, Pay Later | persisted | Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026 | Sustained 20%+ TPV growth quarter after quarter; strategy shifted toward upstream presentment as a customer-acquisition channel. |
| PSP / Braintree price-to-value and value-added services | persisted | Q2 2023, Q4 2023, Q1 2024, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026 | Multi-year reset accepting lower volume for higher margin; returned to double-digit enterprise volume growth by Q4 2025 with 16 monetized value-added services. |
| Fastlane guest checkout | dropped | Q4 2023, Q1 2024, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q4 2024 | Heavily promoted through 2024 as the unlock for the ~60% of checkout done as guest, with named merchant signings; effectively absent from the 2025-2026 calls, a notable disappearance for what was once a headline initiative. |
| Agentic commerce and AI platform partnerships | emerged | Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025 | Grew from an Investor Day aspiration to named OpenAI, Google and Perplexity partnerships; management consistently cautioned it is immaterial to 2026 growth. |
| Structural cost savings and AI transformation | emerged | Q1 2026 | Lores introduced a formal 'at least $1.5 billion' gross run-rate savings program over 2-3 years plus a dedicated AI transformation team — a step up from prior calls' generic efficiency language. |
| Multi-year Investor Day 2027 targets | dropped | Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q4 2025 | The 8-10% branded checkout ambition set at the February 2025 Investor Day framed several 2025 calls, then was explicitly withdrawn on the Q4 2025 call, with the company reverting to one-year-at-a-time guidance. |
Guidance ledger
Quotes, calls, and speakers are source-verified; outcomes are curator-classified.
| Verbatim guidance | Call | Speaker | Curator outcome | Outcome note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| “We now expect 2024 non-GAAP EPS to grow in the high teens and full year transaction margin dollars to increase by a mid-single-digit percentage.” | PayPal Holdings, Inc., Q3 2024 Earnings Call, Oct 29, 2024 · 2024-10-29T12:00:00 | Jamie Miller | kept | FY2024 non-GAAP EPS finished up 21%, above the high-teens guide. |
| “We expect to deliver full year non-GAAP EPS in the range of $4.95 to $5.10, representing about 8% growth at the midpoint.” | PayPal Holdings, Inc., Q4 2024 Earnings Call, Feb 04, 2025 · 2025-02-04T13:00:00 | Jamie Miller | kept | Initial FY2025 guide; full year finished at $5.31 after mid-year raises, above the range. |
| “We expect to deliver full year non-GAAP earnings per share in the range of $5.15 to $5.30, up 11% to 14%.” | PayPal Holdings, Inc., Q2 2025 Earnings Call, Jul 29, 2025 · 2025-07-29T12:00:00 | Jamie Miller | kept | FY2025 non-GAAP EPS of $5.31 landed just above the top of this range. |
| “We are raising our full year non-GAAP earnings per share guidance to a range of $5.35 to $5.39, growing at 15% to 16%.” | PayPal Holdings, Inc., Q3 2025 Earnings Call, Oct 28, 2025 · 2025-10-28T12:00:00 | Jamie Miller | missed | Per the Q4 2025 call, FY2025 EPS came in at $5.31 — $0.04 below the low end of this raised range. |
| “For 2026, we expect these targeted growth investments to represent approximately 3 points of headwind to TM dollar growth, while driving durable long-term benefits in the years ahead.” | PayPal Holdings, Inc., Q4 2025 Earnings Call, Feb 03, 2026 · 2026-02-03T13:00:00 | Steven Winoker | pending | 2026 investment headwind; reiterated on the Q1 2026 call. |
| “For the full year, we expect TM dollars to decline slightly or roughly flat excluding interest and customer balances, approximately 3% growth in nontransaction operating expenses and non-GAAP EPS ranging from down low-single digits to slightly positive.” | PayPal Holdings, Inc., Q4 2025 Earnings Call, Feb 03, 2026 · 2026-02-03T13:00:00 | Steven Winoker | pending | Full-year 2026 guide; reiterated on the Q1 2026 call. |
| “We expect to see at least $1.5 billion of gross run rate savings over the next 2 to 3 years.” | PayPal Holdings, Inc., Q1 2026 Earnings Call, May 05, 2026 · 2026-05-05T12:00:00 | Enrique Lores | pending | New cost program announced under Lores; cadence and reinvestment framework to be detailed later in 2026. |
Q&A pressure map
Question counts and firms are curator tallies; analyst coverage shown above.
| Topic | Questions | Firms | Pressure / response |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online branded checkout growth and Europe | 3 | Bernstein, Wells Fargo, Citi | The dominant pressure point on essentially every call. On the latest call three analysts pressed it directly; management attributed weakness to macro, competition and market-leader normalization in the U.K. and Germany rather than a single cause. |
| Cost-savings program execution | 2 | UBS, Morgan Stanley | Analysts pushed for specifics on the $1.5 billion target and how savings split between reinvestment and returns; management pointed to structural realignment and AI but deferred cadence and KPIs to coming quarters. |
| Portfolio strategy and possible divestitures | 2 | Wolfe Research, Wells Fargo | Asked in both Q1 2026 (Venmo/Braintree) and Q4 2025 (all options / asset sales); management consistently steered back to keeping and organically growing the three core businesses rather than answering the sale question head-on. |
| CEO transition and strategy continuity | 2 | JPMorgan, KBW | On the Q4 2025 call analysts sought assurance the leadership change was about execution, not a wholesale strategy reset; Miller stressed continuity and Enrique's prior board involvement. |
| Whether earnings can grow if branded checkout does not recover | 1 | Bernstein | Q4 2025 — Rawat questioned whether branded can be turned around at all; management leaned on Venmo, PSP and credit as diversified profit levers. |
Language shifts
Only language evidence verified against the referenced component is shown.
| Observation | Verbatim evidence | Call ID | Component |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peak-optimism framing from the prior CEO in the quarter just before the turn — a useful baseline for the confidence swing that followed. | “Put simply, this is the new PayPal, built for faster, more profitable growth.” | 1936997631 | 2 |
| A sharp move to candor on the Q4 2025 leadership-change call, explicitly conceding execution shortfalls. | “our execution has not been what it needs to be. We have not moved fast enough or with the level of focus required, and we are taking immediate steps to address that reality.” | 1977020531 | 2 |
| Management walked back its earlier confidence on the pace of the branded turnaround. | “we were too optimistic about how quickly we could drive change and customer adoption across a massive global user base.” | 1977020531 | 2 |
| Withdrawal of the multi-year targets — a concrete retreat from prior forward commitments. | “we are no longer committing to the specific outlook for 2027 we laid out at Investor Day last year.” | 1977020531 | 2 |
| The incoming CEO opened with realism about structural and operational problems rather than the acceleration language of prior calls. | “I'm also realistic that we need to make significant changes to improve the strategic and operational issues the company has faced.” | 1985919626 | 2 |
The last dozen calls document a turnaround that stalled: through two CEO changes in under three years the central branded-checkout question kept recurring and was never resolved, guidance that was beaten steadily in 2024 and mid-2025 was then missed on the Q3 2025 raise, and the tone shifted from growth-acceleration to cost-cutting and candor about execution. Diversified levers — Venmo, BNPL, PSP profitability — have carried earnings, but they are now offsetting a decelerating core rather than compounding on top of it.