PayPal chief defends long-term strategy after sales miss

Seattle

PAYPAL Holdings Inc chief executive officer Dan Schulman defended his strategy of inking deals with big merchants and smartphone app providers, and offering free peer-to-peer payments as investors sent shares down on concerns the efforts are hurting the company's quarterly profit.

PayPal, in its first quarter as a stand-alone company separate from eBay Inc, said that it added four million accounts to reach 173 million users. Its total payments volume gained 20 per cent to US$69.7 billion from a year earlier.