PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL) and Square (NYSE: SQ) are poised to profit from the secular growth of digital payments over the next several years. Both companies grew their payment volume by 25% during their latest quarter and the market values these growth stocks at comparable enterprise value-to-sales ratios. But beyond these similarities, significant differences exist and these competitors actually align with different investment strategies.
Since its spinoff from eBay in 2015, PayPal has grown into a global digital payment platform for consumers and merchants, partly thanks to acquisitions. For instance, it acquired the mobile payment company iZettle in 2018 to expand its in-store presence. It also diversified into peer-to-peer payments with its acquisitions of Braintree -- the owner of Venmo -- in 2013 and Xoom in 2015. More recently, PayPal announced it agreed to acquire Honey Science to enhance the online shopping experience of its customers.
Image source: Getty Images.