Photo Credit: K?rlis Dambr?ns

PayPal is scheduled to report fourth quarter 2015 earnings this afternoon after the markets close. The Estimize community is expecting EPS of $0.35, only 1 cent higher than Wall Street. Revenue expectations of $2.5B are on par with the Street’s expectation, although they have been gradually falling since the Q3 report, down around 2%. If both of these expectations are met, it would result in EPS growth of 3% YoY, and much higher revenue growth of 15% due to increased consumer activity online during the holiday season. MA Spending Pulse reported that during the holiday shopping season online sales grew 20% from the year-ago period, continuing a trend we’ve been seeing towards ecommerce.

PayPal recently severed ties with eBay, which may allow for new partnerships with dominating ecommerce platforms such as Amazon. PayPal’s acquisitions of Venmo, Braintree, and One Touch have yielded 10 million users utilizing the platforms in 23 different countries. In the third quarter, Venmo’s volumes grew 200%, making it a serious contributor to Paypal’s overall revenue growth. Add to that an increasing number of merchants such as Uber and AirBnB that are accepting PayPal as a form of payment.

Despite all of the successful acquisitions, competition in the mobile payment industry is heating up with Apple and Amazon now on the scene. Those services have nowhere near as many users as PayPal, which currently has 173 million active accounts in 200 countries, but that doesn’t mean Apple Pay and Pay with Amazon aren’t serious contenders. For the time being, the rapid growth of Venmo and Braintree suggests PayPal will remain in good standing for its final report of the year.