Published : 1 month ago, on 07/11/2024

By Gianluca Lo Nostro and Leo Marchandon

(Reuters) -Dutch payments group Adyen’s shares fell nearly 10% on Thursday after its quarterly sales fell short of market expectations.

Adyen said its third-quarter revenue on a constant-currency basis was 498.2 million euros ($535.32 million), up 21% from 413.6 million euros a year earlier. But it was below an analysts’ consensus forecast of 503.3 million euros.

European digital payments companies boomed after the COVID-19 pandemic, but their shares have come under pressure as consumers have reined in spending.

Amsterdam-listed Adyen said that its quarterly processed volume rose to 320.6 billion euros, but flagged a dip compared to its first-half volumes.

The lower volume growth is driven entirely by a single large volume customer which, as previously referenced, has a limited impact on net revenue,” Adyen said in a statement.

Adyen’s shares, which were down 8.2% by 0904 GMT, are on track for their worst day since April.

Its platforms division, which works as an end-payment solution for businesses and users, produced the biggest percentage increase across Adyen’s commercial businesses, up 44% on a year-on-year basis.

Adyen also said that further diversification in its merchant mix and wallet share expansion, a metric used by payments processors to measure their ability to pick up consumer spending, are still driving growth.

“Given the discount structure of Adyen, where larger volumes are charged incrementally lower fees, seeing a drop in this large customer volumes actually improves Adyen’s take rate,” KBC Securities analysts said in a note.

The ‘take rate’ is the percentage of revenue from transactions kept by the company or fee/commission charged to merchants.

Adyen confirmed its net revenue target of low-twenties and high-twenties percent yearly growth up to 2026.

($1 = 0.9307 euros)

(Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro and Leo Marchandon; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Jane Merriman and Alexander Smith)