eBay has reported better than expected earnings for the third quarter, but cut its sales forecast for the year. Shares dropped 3 per cent after hours. The company’s PayPal business had another strong quarter. Revenue grew 20 per cent to $US1.95 billion ($A2.11 billion) and mobile payment volume jumped 72 per cent to $US12 billion. PayPal remains on track to process a billion mobile transactions this year. Earlier this month eBay said it would split off the payment processor, its fas
test growing unit, late next year.
The marketplaces business grew revenue six per cent to $US2.16 billion, and gained 3.4 million new buyers to end the quarter with 152 million active buyers, up 13 per cent.
The San Jose, California-based company said it had profit of 54 US cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for one time gains and costs, were 68 US cents per share. The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 67 US cents per share.
eBay posted total revenue of $US4.35 billion in the period, falling short of Street forecasts. Analysts expected $US4.37 billion, according to Zacks.
For the current quarter ending in December, eBay expects its per share earnings to range from 88 US cents to 91 US cents on revenue of $US4.85 billion to $US4.95 billion. Analysts surveyed by Zacks had expected higher revenue of $US5.17 billion.
The company cut its forecast for full year revenue to a range of $US17.85 billion to $US17.95 billion, from a prior range in July of $US18 billion to $US18.3 billion.
eBay shares have declined slightly more than eight per cent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has climbed nearly one per cent. Shares fell 35 US cents to close at $US50.24, a fall of almost seven per cent in the past 12 months.
AP
