July 18th, 2007
eBay's Skype, PayPal strong; listings down
Guess eBay didn’t need Google that much after all.
Last month eBay pulled its Google advertising over a Google Checkout vs. PayPal spat. It was clear that eBay could do that because it had its quarter in the bag.
So far so good.
eBay reported second quarter earnings Wednesday of $471 million, 34 cents a share, excluding items. Wall Street was expecting earnings of 32 cents a share. Under generally accepted accounting principles eBay reported net income of $376 million or 27 cents a share. Revenue for the quarter was $1.83 billion.
As far as the outlook goes, eBay expects third quarter revenue to be roughly $1.77 billion to $1.82 billion. Earnings excluding items are expected to be 31 cents a share to 33 cents a share. That’s in line with Wall Street estimates of 32 cents a share.
For the year, eBay (see all resources) expects revenue of $7.3 billion to $7.45 billion. Earnings excluding items are projected to be $1.34 to $1.38. Wall Street is projecting earnings of $1.34 a share on sales of $7.4 billion. eBay said its outlook is based on a dollar to euro exchange rate of $1.30. As of today, it takes $1.38 to buy a euro.
Other items:
- eBay Marketplaces had second quarter revenue of $1.29 billion, up 26 percent from a year ago. eBay users had 559 million listings, down 6 percent from a year ago. eBay CEO Meg Whitman said listings value got a boost at the end of the quarter from iPhone sales. To boost activity in advance of the holiday season eBay will be redesigning its home page, adding social features and making search easier.
- Classified: Whitman said Craigslist rival Kijiji is off to a good start. “Success outside U.S. a great indicator of what can be achieved here (U.S.),” said Whitman.
- PayPal had quarterly revenue of $454 million, up 34 percent from a year ago. And you wonder why eBay gets miffed about Google Checkout.
- Skype had revenue of $90 million in the quarter, up 103 percent from a year ago. Skype ended with 220 million registered users, up from 113 million a year ago.
Now the big question is what eBay is doing with its Google listings. We’ll see what eBay says on its conference call.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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