The arena for ecommerce merchant integration is heating up, and the competition is fierce. Consumer online spending trends have exploded due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, individuals are less suspicious of, and more apt to use, alternative payment methods. The top leader in this space, PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL), wants to transform itself into more of a “SuperApp” and less of just a way to pay online. (See PayPal stock charts on TipRanks)
Reporting on this new orientation for the company is Colin Sebastian of Robert W. Baird & Co., who wrote that one of the key growth influences for PayPal is merchant integration with digital wallets. This is true as well for the company’s competition, as he added, “The number of e-commerce sites integrating with wallets, including PayPal, Apple Pay (AAPL), Google Pay (GOOGL) and Amazon Pay (AMZN), more than doubled from June 2020 to June 2021.”
Sebastian assigned a Buy rating on the stock, and declared a price target of $315. This target would reflect a potential 12-month upside of 7.64%.
The five-star analyst mentioned that a reorientation to a “SuperApp” structure (a fully vertically integrated app providing a plethora of services) would allow for more monetization possibilities and consumer engagement.
Although PayPal may be ahead of the pack in the “wallet wars,” Apple Pay is seeing accelerating growth, and even Shopify (SHOP) wishes to jump into the mix. In order to stay relevant, PayPal will have to continue exercising its opportunities for expansion.
Near-term downsides amount to a slowdown in current consumer trends due to the fading pandemic. However, the previous year and a half had seen a meteoric acceleration in online shopping, thus Sebastian did not shift his fundamental view of the healthy company.
Sebastian is expecting a slight uptick in revenue for 2022, and as such raised his price target.
On TipRanks, PYPL has an analyst rating consensus of Strong Buy, based on 21 Buy and 3 Hold ratings. The average PayPal price target is $317.87, suggesting a possible 12-month upside of 8.62%. PayPal closed Tuesday trading at $292.64 per share.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analyst. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.
