PayPal Holdings Inc (PYPL.O) reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit as the payment processor's growing strategic partnerships helped boost payment volumes.

The company's shares were up 2.4 per cent in trading after the bell on Wednesday.

Net income rose 27.2 per cent to US$411 million, or 34 cents per share, in the second quarter ended June 30.

Excluding items, the company earned 46 cents per share, beating the average analyst estimate of 43 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

San Jose, California-based PayPal has been expanding its strategic partnerships and investing in new services.

The company has partnerships with Visa Inc (V.N), MasterCard Inc (MA.N), Google's (GOOGL.O) mobile payments platform, Android Pay and several others.

PayPal's collaboration with Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) services earlier this month has mitigated much concern among investors about competitive threat from Apple. (http://bit.ly/2udRdBv)

PayPal raised its 2017 adjusted earnings forecast to a range of US$1.80 per share to US$1.84 per share, from US$1.74 per share to US$1.79 per share range it previously forecast.

The company said it now expected full-year revenue to be in the range of US$12.775 billion to US$12.875 billion, up from US$12.52 billion to US$12.72 billion earlier.

PayPal, whose product portfolio includes Braintree, Venmo, One Touch and Xoom, among others, added 210 million active customer accounts in the quarter, up 3.4 per cent from a year ago.

Mobile payments volume rose 50 per cent to about US$36 billion.

PayPal has said more than half of its total active account holders transact using a mobile device.

Payment volumes at PayPal's Venmo, the Braintree-operated peer-to-peer mobile payments platform, more than doubled to US$8.0 billion in the second quarter.

Total payments volume jumped 23.5 per cent to US$106.44 billion.

Total revenue rose 18.3 per cent to US$3.14 billion.

Up to Wednesday's close, PayPal's shares had risen 49 per cent this year.