eBay has spent much of the last year rethinking its market position and reworking its platform to help it compete more consistently and strongly against Amazon.com (and the rest of retail).
And, as of Q4 2017, it looks like those efforts are paying off — literally.
The holiday period saw a 3.1 percent rise in quarterly revenue for eBay — some good news that pushed up the price of shares in the online marketplace by 7.5 percent in after hours trading.
By the numbers, eBay saw its net income increase to $5.94 billion, or $5.30 per share during Q4. That is up from $477 million, or 39 cents per share, at the same time in 2016. The net income increase was reportedly driven by a non-cash $4.6 billion income tax benefit related to a legal structure realignment, mostly impacting its international entities.
Excluding one-time items, eBay earned 54 cents per share. That was more or less in line with pre-release estimates.
Revenue was up to $2.40 billion from $2.32 billion the year prior. This, again, was in line with what analysts were looking for with respect to performance. The company forecasts first quarter adjusted profit of 46-48 cents per share and revenue of $2.17 billion-$2.21 billion. That was slightly south of the analysts’ average expectation of 50 cents per share and revenue of $2.21 billion.
The company also forecasts full-year adjusted profit of $1.98-$2.03 per share, missing estimates of $2.06 per share, and revenue of $9.3 billion-$9.5 billion, compared with estimates of $9.36 billion. The company said its gross merchandise volume, or the total value of all goods sold on its sites, rose 2.2 percent to $22.34 billion in the quarter.
Ebay’s pick-up strategy in the post-Pay Pal era has been to expand its selection of both products and brands available on its site, as well as to require marketplace sellers to give more information on goods for sale. Listing costs have also gone down.
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