PayPal Holdings Inc.’s cost-savings story continued in the holiday quarter, as the digital-payments company topped profit expectations for the period. It also disclosed that its chief executive plans to step down from that role at the end of the year. The company on Thursday posted fourth-quarter net income of $921 million, or 81 cents a share, up from $801 million, or 68 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. After adjustments, PayPal
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earned $1.24 a share, whereas analysts tracked by FactSet were expecting $1.20 a share.
The company is in the midst of cutting expenses as it refocuses on its core strengths, through a plan announced last summer. PayPal announced last week that it intended to lay off 7% of its staff as it further dialed in on its priorities. PayPal’s revenue for the fourth quarter rose to $7.38 billion, up from $6.92 billion a year before, and in line with the FactSet consensus, which was for $7.39 billion. The company generated $357.4 billion in total payment volume, or the value of transactions processed on its platform. Analysts tracked by FactSet were anticipating $360.3 billion. Chief Executive Dan Schulman said in the company’s earnings release that PayPal had “a transformative year” in which it “invested in our platform to better serve our customers” but also streamlined the business. Schulman, who has been with the company since 2014 and helped usher it into a life separate from eBay Inc.
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plans to retire from the CEO position at the end of the year, according to a separate statement, though he wi …