Earnings Roundup – December 1, 2023 – PayPal (PYPL); Lululemon (LULU); Shopify (SHOP); Mastercard (MA); Adobe (ADBE); Amazon (AMZN)
What recession? Spending during the holiday weekend was robust and well ahead of expectations. Mastercard reported 2.5% Y/Y growth overall (8.5% for e-commerce) vs. 0.5% Y/Y growth expectations. Adobe reported 7.5% Y/Y growth vs. 5.5% Y/Y growth expected. It talked up some incremental discounting and price sensitivity, but not enough to hold back strong growth. Notes of outperforming Lululemon store traffic were abundant. The manager of Amazon’s second largest UK fulfillment center told us that they’re “busier than ever” with “no signs of a decline.” It also reported “record-breaking” results without quantifying. This is especially notable considering the EMEA economy is on more fragile footing than North America at the moment. Shopify growth impressively accelerated to 24% Y/Y vs. 19% Y/Y in 2022. Travel traffic set new records and in-store traffic rose faster than expected. All in all, the consumer continued to stay more resilient than some thought it would.
PayPal’s new CEO talked up some gaudy transaction and volume figures, but the lack of Y/Y comparisons makes that less relevant to me. What is relevant, however, is how well its buy now, pay later (BNPL) product is doing. Per a Statista report, 68% of those surveyed used PayPal BNPL in October and November. Amazon Pay was second at 26.5%. The sample size of 837 people is quite small, but this is still worth noting.
