PayPal cuts its share count by about 9% as buybacks do the heavy lifting

PayPal reduced its share count by roughly 9% over the past year, with buybacks driving per-share earnings growth even as revenue stayed flat. The company has leaned on repurchasing stock to lift EPS rather than expanding its core business organically. The shrinking share base means each remaining share represents a larger slice of earnings, flattering headline per-share figures. The dynamic matters because it suggests PayPal's bottom-line improvement owes more to financial engineering than to operational momentum. Investors will be watching whether revenue growth can reaccelerate before buybacks lose their ability to mask stagnation.