Growth in Europe Slows but EMEA Remains Key Region for Adyen
Stock market jitters are no joke.
As a case in point, upon the release of Adyen’s first-half results on Thursday (Aug. 18), the company’s shares dropped nearly 15% in trading after the global payments firm reported first-half earning results 3% below market expectations.
Read more: Adyen Share Price Tumbles as Earnings Miss Estimates
But after a rocky morning, Adyen stocks regained a good chunk of their lost value as company CFO, Ingo Uytdehaage, addressed investors on an earnings call later in the day.
In terms of headline numbers, Adyen’s revenue in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) grew by 30% compared to 52% in North America and 53% in the Asia-Pacific region, indicating comparatively slow growth in Europe, where the Amsterdam-headquartered firm is based.
To explain the imbalance, Ethan Tandowsky, Adyen’s head of group finance, pointed to the company’s global operations and the fact that “there are times when one region goes faster than another based on the projects we’re working on with those global customers.”
He added that in Europe, where the Dutch payments firm has been the longest, they have been pleased with the growth they’re witnessing across the market. “We’re still taking market share, we’re still seeing that we win from the incumbents [and] the newer players. Overall we’re really confident with our performance in Europe and we continue to hire here to support that,” Tandowsky said.
And the fact that Amsterdam is still the company’s largest base and has accounted for the majority of the new hires this year further emphasizes the point that Europe remains a key market for the firm even if other regions have outpaced it in terms of growth.
Related: Adyen on Leveraging Unified Commerce to Meet Consumers Where They Are
For example, of the company’s over 2,500 staff full-time equivalent (FTE), close to 60% (1,486) of them are based out of the global and European headquarters in Amsterdam. Adyen also has offices in 10 other European cities, more than in any other region.
Bucking the Mass Layoff Trend
Amid growing investor concerns, biting inflation and crippling geopolitical issues, Adyen has bucked the trend of mass layoffs and hiring freezes adopted by many global companies.
Instead, the firm expanded its workforce by 400 early this year, leading to a 37% wage increase from 2021 to €135 million.
Related: Payment Tech’s New Mantra: 'Stay Scared but Calm’
But according to Uytdehaage, injecting that hefty sum into building their team — 50% of the new hires are in tech roles — is a crucial part of their long-term strategy, which is all about investing in the future.
“It is a longer time horizon before you see a product like the embedded financial products turning into significant revenues, but that’s an investment that we want to make because we have seen in the past [...] that it really pays off,” he said.
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