eBay Could Never Disappoint, Right?

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eBay Could Never Disappoint, Right?

eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) has been a big player in the online market for consumers. The recent acquisition of PayPal will definitely enhance the position of eBay. The company has also posted solid earnings quarter over quarter, forcing investors to remain bullish in this stock.

eBay has witnessed an increase in its year over year gross merchandise volume growth and this growth is the outcome of new users, acquired in the past few quarters. eBay holds the view that, on an average, one in every three purchases on eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) is by mobile. The company expects to process over $10 billion in mobile payment, in 2012.

The online retailer claims that its mobile app has been downloaded 100 million times since its launch four years ago, the figure is almost equal to the number of the  active users, who bought, listed or sold something on eBay last year.

Strong Financials

The company recorded a total revenue of $3.4 billion in the third quarter of 2012, an increase of 15% year over year. The adjusted net income stood at $718 million or 55 cents per share, an increase of 14% year over year.

PayPal has contributed to the growth of eBay and posted 14% gain year over year in the number of active accounts, which stood at 117.4 million as of September 30. eBay managed to rake in revenues of $1.367 billion in its third quarter.

Fourth Quarter Expectations

The company expects to post revenues between $3.85 billion and $4 billion, with adjusted earnings per share at 66 cents to 69 cents. eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) is expecting increased revenues for the fourth quarter, owing to the holiday shopping season. For year 2012, the company expects to pull in $13.95 billion to $14.1 billion, in revenue, and adjusted earnings per share of $2.32 – $2.35.

channel Advisor same store sales

Significant steps

eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) launched its same day shipping service in 2012 and invited some of the San Francisco users to a new same-day shipping service called eBay Now. An iOS app, eBay Now’s beta will allow SF residents get $5 same-day shipping on products from local stores. It’s now signing up users for “exclusive beta”.

Prior to eBay, TaskRabbit and Uber provided consumer with this kind of facility, and now eBay wants consumers to get the same experience through its service. Consumers are witnessing the rise of convenience technology.

eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) also acquired Sypply, a New York-based startup that duplicates the experience of window-shopping online with a social, curated and personalized experience. Sypply offers accurate selection of stylish merchandise from across the Web. Through the services offered by this site, online shoppers can keep the record of products they like. The customers can also see what their Facebook and twitter friends like and help to discover the products from other users. It also allows users display galleries of items they want or own.

eBay changed its logo in 2012. The colors of the logo are the same, but the font has been changed to give a modern and sleek look, and the word “eBay” is nicely aligned in a straight line.

Competition Intensifying

 eBay’s major competitors are: salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM) and Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (NYSE:RAX) for Cloud Services. Traditional retailers like Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT), Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT), and Costco (COST) also impact eBay’s business. Amazon is also a retailer in tech clothing.

The market capitalization of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is around 120.19 billion as compared to 68.58 billion for eBay. However, earnings per share of Ebay is 2.93 compared to 0.08 of Amazon.

In the past few months, retailers including Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) and eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY), have been testing the same-day delivery service, to compete similar Amazon’s initiatives. If eBay succeeds in its efforts, it will be a major blow for Amazon.

Google  Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) shopping, a subsection of Google, allows users to search and filter a product results by relevancy or by price. Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) shopping is expected to become a virtual shopping mall, competing directly with Amazon and eBay.

PayPal

PayPal has turned out to be an amazingly profitable acquisition for eBay. In eBay’s third quarter, PayPal’s revenue reached $1.4 billion and its total payment volume grew to $35.2 billion. The increase of 24% in PayPal’s revenue contributed 41.1% to eBay’s third quarter’s total revenue. Those numbers are incredible. By the end of fiscal year 2012, eBay expects over $10 billion in mobile payments alone. PayPal also has very healthy merchant transaction margins of 64.8%.

The mobile payments market is all set to rise from $240 billion to $640 billion by 2015. This market is luring the financial institutions like Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC), and also Square Inc and Intuit (INTU). With the probable growth in the market, competition is building, and PayPal is well positioned to take over the mobile payments space.

The reason behind the dominance of PayPal over the mobile payment market is due to “share of Wallet.” This is the cost   to switch banks. Many retail bank customers will endure high fees due to the number of products and services they have with the bank.

In case of eBay, it already has 117 million active users. These users may find it easy to stay with PayPal instead of switching to the other option if they are using eBay mobile and online services and also Bill Me service.

Conclusion

The e-Commerce and shopping on mobile devices are set to grow in the future with increasing rates, this would help the original players in the space’ i.e. eBay Inc. According to an analyst from Canaccord Genuity, the e-Commerce will continue its growth because these models are more efficient, mobile and more useful and eBay is standing in the safe zone. The fundamental outlook of the company is stable and could see an improvement in the future.

The strong financials and intelligent acquisitions, along with a strong presence in the growth sectors, make the stock a must-have in one’s portfolio.

 

 

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