PayPal Holdings, Inc. · PYPL · FY2026 Q1 · Calendar Q2 2026

PayPal Q1 2026: Beat on Revenue and EPS, New CEO Unveils $1.5B Cost-Saving Plan

PayPal's Q1 FY2026 results exceeded consensus on both EPS ($1.34 vs. $1.27) and revenue ($8.35B vs. $8.05B), driven by 11% spot TPV growth and strength in Venmo and payment services. Despite the beat, the stock fell sharply — down roughly 7.7% on the day with continued negative drift afterward — suggesting investors focused on the scale and risk of the planned transformation rather than the near-term results. New CEO Enrique Lores outlined a sweeping reorganization into three business units (checkout, consumer financial services, payment services) and a $1.5 billion cost-saving program powered by AI and organizational simplification. Full-year 2026 guidance was reaffirmed, balancing these investments against macro headwinds, but the simultaneous restructuring, technology overhaul, and cost-reduction effort carry meaningful execution risk that the market has not yet rewarded.

Reported Before market openNASDAQFinancial Services $51.44B market cap
100quality score

Company context

Snapshot as of publication

PayPal Holdings, Inc. provides a worldwide technological framework that facilitates digital financial transactions for both businesses and individual users. The company offers a wide array of payment services through well-known brands such as PayPal, PayPal Credit, Braintree, Venmo, Xoom, Zettle, Hyperwallet, Honey, and Paidy. Through its extensive platform, consumers are able to send and receive funds across roughly 200 global markets and in approximately 100 different currencies. Additionally, users can transfer money to their bank accounts in 56 currencies and maintain account balances in 25 distinct currencies within their PayPal accounts. Founded in 1998, the company's corporate headquarters are situated in San Jose, California.

Earnings scorecard

Reported versus consensus
Reported EPS $1.34 Consensus $1
EPS surprise +5.5% Reported versus consensus
Reported revenue $8.35B Consensus $8.05B
Revenue surprise +3.8% Reported versus consensus

Earnings History

Estimate Beat Miss Match
PYPL EPS earnings history estimate and actual scatter chart 10 reported fiscal quarters and 4 future estimate-only quarters. Q4 '23 estimate $1.27 Q4 '23 actual $1.38, beat Q1 '24 estimate $1.22 Q1 '24 actual $1.40, beat Q2 '24 estimate $0.99 Q2 '24 actual $1.19, beat Q3 '24 estimate $1.07 Q3 '24 actual $1.20, beat Q4 '24 estimate $1.11 Q4 '24 actual $1.19, beat Q2 '25 estimate $1.30 Q2 '25 actual $1.40, beat Q3 '25 estimate $1.20 Q3 '25 actual $1.34, beat Q4 '25 estimate $1.29 Q4 '25 actual $1.23, miss Q1 '26 estimate $1.27 Q1 '26 actual $1.34, beat Q2 '26 estimate $1.28 Q2 '26 actual $1.38, beat Q3 '26 estimate $1.33 Q4 '26 estimate $1.36 Q1 '27 estimate $1.45 Q2 '27 estimate $1.37
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Analyst Consensus ?

ConsensusHold68 ratings
Bullish2435.3%
Neutral4160.3%
Bearish34.4%

1 unmapped firm rating excluded from the percentages.

Analyst 52W Price Targets

$58.35Current
$34Low
$96.7Average
$290High

Latest persisted target per named analyst; persisted current price from FN2's market snapshot as of Jul 30, 2026. Not an FN2 forecast.

Firm-level rating actions

FMP grade actions identify the grading firm, not a named analyst.

FirmRatingPrior ratingActionDate
Truist Securities Hold SellUpgradeJul 24, 2026
Canaccord Genuity Hold HoldMaintainJul 16, 2026
Barclays Equal Weight UnderweightUpgradeJul 16, 2026
Macquarie Neutral NeutralMaintainJul 15, 2026
Goldman Sachs Sell SellMaintainJul 9, 2026
Piper Sandler Neutral NeutralMaintainJun 30, 2026
UBS Neutral NeutralMaintainMay 6, 2026
RBC Capital Outperform OutperformMaintainMay 6, 2026
Show 61 more rating actions

Named analyst price targets

Upside is calculated against the persisted current price $58.35. FMP does not supply a rating on these named-analyst rows.

FirmAnalyst52W targetPrice when postedUpsideDate
Goldman SachsAnalyst unavailable$50$58.32 -14.3%Jul 28, 2026
Truist FinancialMatthew Coad$57$56 -2.3%Jul 24, 2026
BarclaysAnalyst unavailable$55$57.34 -5.7%Jul 16, 2026
Canaccord GenuityJoseph Vafi$55$55.52 -5.7%Jul 16, 2026
Goldman SachsAnalyst unavailable$48$44.53 -17.7%Jul 9, 2026
BarclaysAnalyst unavailable$42$45.65 -28.0%Jul 7, 2026
Piper SandlerBill Carcache$42$44.38 -28.0%Jun 29, 2026
Truist FinancialAnalyst unavailable$44$45.07 -24.6%May 12, 2026
MacquariePaul Golding$50$46.27 -14.3%May 7, 2026
UBSAnalyst unavailable$48$46.04 -17.7%May 6, 2026
See 194 more

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Market reaction

prior-close to event-session close
Stock move -7.7% Event window
SPY move +0.8% Same window
Abnormal move -8.5% Stock minus SPY
Volume 3.1× Versus trailing sessions
Subsequent drift -8.3% Up to 20 sessions
PYPLSPY benchmark

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Transcript intelligence

What changed

The prior quarter (Q4 FY2025) highlighted a branded checkout slowdown (only 1% TPV growth) and introduced Enrique Lores as incoming CEO with a focus on execution. This quarter marked Lores's first full quarter at the helm and brought concrete strategic moves: a formal reorganization into three business pillars, a $1.5 billion gross-run-rate cost-saving initiative over 2-3 years, the deployment of an AI transformation team, and the launch of PayPal Plus in the UK. The optimized checkout button reached approximately 45% adoption. TY USD stablecoin became the largest federally regulated stablecoin, expanded to 70 markets. Branded checkout showed improvement from the Q4 trough, though management did not quantify the specific recovery.

Guidance delta

Full-year 2026 guidance was reaffirmed despite macro headwinds, matching the maintained guidance sentiment from the prior quarter. The prior quarter had guided to flat to slightly declining transaction margin dollars and low-single-digit EPS growth for 2026, with approximately 3 points of headwind from targeted investments. This quarter's reaffirmation, combined with the $1.5B cost-saving program announcement, suggests management sees enough operating leverage to offset investment costs — but did not raise the outlook, indicating no material upgrade to the revenue or profit trajectory.

Key takeaways

  • Q1 FY2026 beat consensus with EPS of $1.34 (est. $1.27) and revenue of $8.35B (est. $8.05B), driven by 11% spot TPV growth.
  • New CEO Enrique Lores restructured PayPal into three business units: checkout, consumer financial services, and payment services.
  • Announced a $1.5 billion gross-run-rate cost-saving program over 2-3 years, driven by AI adoption and organizational simplification.
  • TY USD stablecoin became the largest federally regulated stablecoin and was expanded to 70 markets.
  • Optimized checkout button reached approximately 45% adoption, up from the prior quarter's focus on improving checkout experience.

Management priorities

  • Execute the three-business-unit reorganization to sharpen accountability and speed decision-making.
  • Deploy the AI transformation team to redesign core processes and capture the targeted $1.5B in cost savings.
  • Scale the optimized checkout button to full rollout from the current ~45% adoption level.
  • Expand the PayPal Plus loyalty program beyond the UK to broader markets.
  • Scale TY USD stablecoin availability across additional markets.

Related earnings events

Financial Services

Sources

  1. Earnings call transcript and parsed analysis · 2026-05-11T10:29:34.698584+00:00
  2. FN2 earnings calendar · 2026-07-26T00:37:12.209961+00:00
  3. Polygon adjusted daily market bars · 2026-07-29T23:31:15.220519+00:00
  4. Financial Modeling Prep analyst price-target consensus and quote snapshot · 2026-07-29T23:31:15.218413+00:00

Methodology

Reported and consensus figures come from FN2's earnings event records. Market reaction and volume are calculated from daily adjusted bars around the event; abnormal move subtracts the SPY move over the same window.

Analyst target low, average, and high values are derived at request time from each named analyst's latest persisted FMP target. The current-price marker comes from FN2's persisted market snapshot. They are sell-side estimates, not an FN2 valuation or recommendation.

Transcript intelligence is a structured synthesis of the current and prior earnings-call analyses. Missing values stay missing and are never estimated.

By FN2 Research · Updated . For educational purposes only; not investment advice.