EBay Inc.’s payment unit, which includes PayPal Inc. and Bill Me Later, experienced a strong fourth quarter, eBay reported this afternoon.
For the quarter ended Dec. 31, the payments unit reported net revenue of $971 million, up 22% from $796 during the same period last year.
EBay did not report the unit’s net income, and it did not break our Bill Me Later’s financials.
The company brought PayPal’s active account total to 94.4 million, a 16.5% increase from 81 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.
PayPal’s net total payments volume increased 25.7%, to $26.9 billion from $21.4 billion, with Bill Me Later increasing its payments volume by 48.9%, to $460 million from $309 million.
PayPal’s merchant services net payment volume was $16.5 billion, up 36.4% from $12.1 billion. The unit includes PayPal-accepting merchants, active PayPal accounts and eBay’s share of Mobile Express Checkout, an initiative that enables consumers to pay for purchases using their mobile phones. Mobile Express Checkout offers consumers the same payment option as the online version of PayPal.
As a company, eBay reported net revenue of $2.5 billion for the quarter, up 4.2% from $2.4 billion a year earlier. The company generated net income of $559 million, down 59% from $1.36 billion a year earlier, when the company recognized a gain from the sale of Skype.
