eBay defies 'softening' economy
Profits leap 22 per cent
Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner
eBay says that a softening economy has slowed its online auctions on both sides of the Atlantic. But the company still made an awful lot of money during the year's first quarter. And it still has high hopes for the future.
"We are encouraged by what we are seeing," brand-spanking-new CEO John Donahoe told investors during a conference call. "With Q1 behind us, I feel very good about the direction we are headed."
During the quarter ending March 31 - the day Donahoe grabbed the reins from former CEO Meg Whitman - the world's most popular online auction house raked in revenues of $2.19bn, a 24 per cent increase from a year ago, while profits hit $460m, a 22 percent leap from the previous year.
This came despite what eBay called "softening" economies in the US and the UK. "We saw a slowing in terms of buyers' propensity to buy toward the end of the first quarter," Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan said during the call. The US is eBay's number one market, while Britain is number three (just behind Germany).
But eBay cleaned up in other parts of the world, benefiting from a weak American dollar. Fifty-five per cent of the company's "marketplace" revenue - cash generated from auctions on eBay.com, Shopping.com, StubHub, Kijiji, and other sites - came from outside the US.
The number of eBay users increased only 1 per cent from the previous year, while gross merchandising volume (GMV) - the sum value of all closed auctions - decreased one per cent. But the number of auction listings rose 10 per cent.
eBay was pleased enough with the quarter to raise its forecast for the coming year. The company now expects 2008 revenues to reach somewhere between $8.7bn and $9bn. ®
Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider
COMMENTS
UK alternatives to eBAY
UK alternatives to eBAY would be eBid and CQout
Just use the others...
Ebid and QXL. Spread the word so that ebay will die.
@ brent
great flame, love it. Granted you may need a lesson in global markets, but hey ho.
Comcast and Version? Who are they? Can't say they are huge players in the UK (and I guess Europe). So they could make more money here.
Apple and Microfsoft? We'll Apple certainly don't have a monopoly in the PC market, but there share is growing, so I guess you mean iTunes? the iPod? the Jesus phone?
The amazing thing about companies, is how they release new products and open new markets, thus profits can contune to grow.
Tesco, a little UK company, has managed year on year profits for many, many years. They open new markets and sell new products. So even they may not actaully increase their basic user base in their home country, the range they suppply increases, so therefore people spend more with them.
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider
Cloud based data management
Enabling efficient data center monitoring
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
