eBay isn't going anywhere

Posted Jan 25th 2007 3:15PM by Jonathan Berr
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Good news, Industry, Google (GOOG), eBay (EBAY), Columns

Wasn't eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) supposed to be driven out of business by now by a combination of Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and sellers irate about fee increases?

Guess what? eBay isn't going anywhere. Reports of the demise of the world's largest Internet auction site were GREATLY exaggerated.

Google, which has been heavily promoting Google Checkout, has proven at least for now not to be much of a threat. PayPal's revenue rose 37 percent, helped by the rebates and free shipping offers. Listings were even up which got me wondering what happened to the mad sellers. Did they leave and get replaced or did they leave and come back?

eBay not only posted better-than-expected fourth quarter results and boosted its profit forecast, it also announced plans to buy back as many as $2 billion in stock. Meg Whitman has sure got some nerve having a good quarter instead of selling off eBay to the highest bidder.

Wall Street missed the boat on eBay's popularity with gamers and its growth prospects in Europe. The company was smart to buy StubHub, a deal which makes tons more sense than the acquisition of Skype.

But shareholders shouldn't breathe easy just quite yet. Google may eventually figure a way to compete against eBay which will drive the company into the arms of a suitor. eBay, though, doesn't seem like it's in that situation yet, not be a long shot.

Check out some other earnings reports that we're following, and let us know what you're expecting.

Tags: ebay, ecommerce, etailing, internet, retail spending, RetailSpending, web

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

1-27-2007 @ 11:57AM

Tracy Riggs said...

You state EBay is not going anywhere. Meaning? It's not going anywhere because it's still here? That might be true in a sense. One can be here even if somewhat comatose at the wheel! EBay stock has not gone anywhere. It's a lagger. The last few years have been horrible. Up and down, up and down and going nowhere... Meg announced another stock buy back. Big deal! She would be better to announce a good size dividend to keep her stockholders happy. eBay stock will still be hovering around $30.00 dollars five years from now, lol. Sorry, any way you look at it eBay stock sucks.