PayPal Reports Nearly 35 Million Accounts in Europe
In a press release this morning, PayPal announced that it has nearly 35 million accounts in Europe, a milestone that PayPal says "demonstrates the growing popularity of PayPal among internet consumers and merchants across Europe." Note that the number announced appears to be total, not active, PayPal accounts. In January, PayPal reported over 133 million total accounts of which 37.6 million were active in the quarter ending December 31, 2006.
PayPal’s popularity is reflected in high penetration rates among online shoppers in the major European markets including the UK, Germany, France and Italy. According to Forrester Research, 23% of European online shoppers prefer paying with PayPal.
“PayPal has worked hard to build a safe and convenient payment service specifically tailored to European e-commerce,” said Brent Bellm, vice president of PayPal Europe. “PayPal lets consumers pay using the card or bank of their choice, without ever having to retype their financial information or share it with the merchant. In Europe, choice, convenience, and privacy are what make PayPal such a popular way to pay.”
In 2006, PayPal processed $8.4 billion of total payment volume in Europe. Thousands of European merchants accept PayPal today from their websites, including leading e-commerce sites such as Boots, DHL, Harrods, Meetic, Pixmania and eBay. With PayPal, merchants can sell their goods to the tens of millions of proven online shoppers that prefer PayPal, often seeing an incremental sales lift after adding PayPal to their sites.
PayPal has a local presence in 15 countries including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland and the UK. To support local and cross border ecommerce, PayPal also supports payments from 103 markets in 17 global currencies including Euros, Pounds Sterling, Czech Koruna, Danish Krone, Hungarian Forint, Norwegian Krone, Polish Zloty, Swedish Krona, and Swiss Francs.
Add your comment... (note that all comments are reviewed before they're published)