Stripe grows international FY 2022 revenue, costs, amid layoffs
Stripe has published its full-year 2022 earnings for its Dublin-headquartered division, providing the most detailed information about the company’s performance since it announced major layoffs in late 2022.
As Stripe is not a publicly traded company, the payments processor does not publish full accounts, however Irish law requires it to publish yearly accounts for Stripe Payments International Holdings, its international division that covers the Europe, Middle East and Asia-Pacific segment of the business.
For this segment of the business, while the company has seen relatively strong growth, its revenue growth rate has dropped considerably from previous years. Meanwhile, its pre-tax losses have grown significantly.
Stripe cites rising costs for increased international losses in FY 2022
Stripe Payments International Holdings reported 2022 FY revenue of $2.85bn, an increase of 27% on 2021’s $2.26bn. However, this represents the slowest growth rate the division has seen, following a 66% increase in 2021, a 70% increase in 2020 and a 51% increase in 2019.
Meanwhile, the company saw its pre-tax losses grow significantly. While the Irish division has almost always made a loss, this year it saw this increase significantly. In 2022, it made a loss of $189.5m, a 757% increase on 2021’s loss of $22m. This is in part due to a 30% increase in cost of sales for the group to $2.3bn, while administrative expenses have increased 52% to $721m.
Stripe says this increase is the result of growth in business from existing customers and greater user adoption, as well as its expansion into new markets and the launch of new products. In 2022, Stripe announced multiple partnerships across the segment, including some key integrations in Japan and a significant global expansion of its Partner Ecosystem programme. It also launched new products including global crypto products.
Stripe also points to increased investment in research and development in the group, which the company says are “significant”.
International employee numbers increase for FY 2022 despite layoffs
Critically, the company also reported a sharp uptick in the number of employees of Stripe Payments International Holdings, with it reporting the “continued increase in headcount throughout the region” as key to its increase in administrative expenses.
The group’s average total employees for 2022 reached 1,767, an increase of 69% on 2021. However, Stripe does not report employee numbers for the year-end, so it is not clear whether the global layoffs the company announced in November 2022 significantly reduced this.
Stripe announced that it was laying off 15% of its 8,000 employees worldwide, resulting in job cuts of around 1,120. However, at the time it appeared that most of these employees were based in the US, backed by announcements on LinkedIn, suggesting that the company’s Europe-based division saw less of an impact.
Stripe shifts hiring focus to engineering
However, it is notable that there has been a significant shift in the areas that Stripe Payments International Holdings employees are working in.
Engineering accounted for 32% of employees for the first time in 2022, having been at 22% in 2021, while Administration dropped from 34% in 2021 to 21% in 2022. Sales remained at around 30%, while user operations increased slightly from 13% to 17%.
With much of 2023 having already happened since the period these results covered ended, there are aspects to Stripe’s development that will not be reflected in these results. This includes a small number of administrative layoffs at its Dublin headquarters in June 2023 as well as continued investment internationally, including in Australia.
However, these results do reflect a company that is growing amid increased headwinds, and raises increased questions about when Stripe will finally decide the time is right for an IPO.
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