eBay Earns 68 Cents Per Share

After the bell, eBay ($EBAY) reported Q3 earnings of 68 cents per share. That was one penny more than expectations. Three months ago, the online auction house gave us a range of 65 to 67 cents per share. Quarterly revenue rose 12% to $4.4 billion which was slightly better than expectations.

“Rapidly changing competitive environments in commerce and payments underscore the opportunities for eBay and PayPal, and highlight how each business will benefit from the focus and agility of being an independent company,” said eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe. “PayPal had another strong quarter, and its mobile payments leadership and momentum continued with mobile volume up 72 percent to $12 billion. PayPal is on track to process 1 billion mobile transactions in 2014. And eBay continues to focus on enhancing its competitive position, improving the experience for buyers and sellers and investing in consumer engagement. As we prepare to separate eBay and PayPal in 2015, our teams are focused on strong execution to ensure each business is set up for long-term success.”

Guidance was blah (to use a technical term). For Q4, eBay expects earnings to come in between 88 and 91 cents per share. Wall Street had been expecting 91 cents per share. The company expects Q4 revenue of $4.85 billion to $4.95 billion. Wall Street had $5.16 billion.

eBay lowered their full-year revenue guidance to $17.85 to $17.95 billion. The company doesn’t reference the old guidance but I’m pretty sure it was $18.0 to $18.3 billion. They also made no comment about full-year earnings guidance so I’m assuming the previous guidance of $2.95 to $3.00 per share still holds, but I can’t be sure.

By my math, eBay has earned $2.03 per share for the first nine months of this year. Tacking on the Q4 guidance to that, gives us a full-year range of $2.91 to $2.94 which doesn’t’ jive with what they’ve said. Maybe I’m missing something, or this will be cleared up on the conference call.

The shares dropped 3.6% in the after-hours market, but recovered a little ground and are now down about 1.5%.

Posted by on October 15th, 2014 at 5:37 pm


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