Venmo’s most popular emoji – shared on average over 49,000 times per week – is the pizza slice , Paypal Holdings Inc. said during its analyst day presentation on Wednesday.
Of more significance (probably) is the 154% year-over-year growth that Venmo recorded in the first quarter of 2016, hitting $3.2 billion in total payment volume. (Paypal CEO first released the figure during an earnings call last month). However, the company’s overall payment progression in the past three years is also quite impressive.
On average, active Venmo users open the app two-three times per week, Paypal said in a release. The “secret sauce” behind the success is the idea of “celebrating real life moments behind transaction” and representing the “next generation of mobile commerce,” the company said.
Additionally, Pay with Venmo feature – still in Beta – is now available to over 1 million users, almost double the 550,000 user base that Paypal CEO Daniel Schulman mentioned last month during Paypal’s earnings:
Early customer results and feedback have provided strong validation around the demand for Venmo as a way to pay in-app. This feedback has helped us to fine tune our processes, procedures and value proposition. And we have now widened our pilot to include approximately 550,000 Venmo users. We are on track to expand to more merchants and open the service to our full Venmo customer base in the second half of this year.
With the new feature, Venmo makes paying “merchants as easily as you pay your friends and experience true social commerce.” Currently, Gametime, an app that provides last-minute event tickets, and food delivery service Munchery are among the companies that have integrated Venmo payment method in their apps.