◆ Inside the Latest Results (FY2025 & H1 2026)

Adyen's recent results tell the story of a high-quality business that has recovered convincingly from its 2023 scare, with both growth and margins reasserting themselves. For the 2025 financial year, net revenue grew 21% on a constant-currency basis to €2.36 billion, EBITDA rose 26% to €1.25 billion¹, and — the number the market watches most closely after 2023 — the EBITDA margin climbed to 53%, up from 50% the year before and well recovered from the mid-40s trough of the scare. Net income passed a billion euros for the first time, at around €1.06 billion, and diluted earnings reached €33.61² per share. The company processed €1.4 trillion of payment volume³. These are the numbers of a genuine compounder back on track — growth in the low-20s, margins rising, profitability substantial and real.

The composition is reassuring. Growth was broad-based across regions and channels, driven by the land-and-expand dynamic with existing enterprise customers and by continued new wins; the margin recovery reflected operating leverage reasserting itself as growth outpaced the elevated investment of the prior two years, vindicating the view that 2023 was an investment phase rather than a broken model. Management guided to continued strength: 21–23% constant-currency net revenue growth in 2026⁴, with the EBITDA margin expected to hold before rising above 55% by 2028 as the operating leverage continues to compound. The guidance reflects real confidence, a strong pipeline of enterprise prospects, and the expectation that the recovery in both growth and margins is durable rather than a rebound.

The recovery matters because of what preceded it. The 2023 scare — when North American competition, a maturing base, and a step-up in investment slowed growth and compressed margins, sending the stock down roughly 40% in a day⁵ — had raised the question of whether Adyen's model was structurally challenged. The subsequent results answer it substantially in the affirmative for the bulls: growth re-accelerated, the margin recovered and is guided higher, and the profitability proved cyclical-but-structural rather than broken. Adyen faced its formidable competition, invested through the pressure, and came out compounding again, which is real evidence of the quality and durability of the franchise.

The honest reading holds a caution alongside the vindication. The results are genuinely strong and confirm Adyen's quality, its recovery, and the reality of its profitability — this is a business performing well and guiding confidently. But the same structural pressures remain: the competition from Stripe and the field is undiminished, the take rate keeps drifting lower, the largest customers retain their power and their insourcing option, and the valuation still requires the low-20s growth to persist. The 2025 results and 2026 guidance show a narrow-moat business executing superbly and compounding again, and they are the strongest possible answer to the 2023 doubts. But they do not remove the structural questions — they show a high-quality company managing them well, for now, which is exactly what a good narrow-moat business does: not escape the competition and the headwinds, but out-execute them quarter after quarter, as Adyen, on this evidence, continues to do.