eBay is scheduled to release its next earnings report on or around Jan. 22, and analysts are putting out their estimates ahead of that report. The auction site is busily preparing to spin off PayPal next year, and analysts at BGC say the fact that the two companies are separating probably means the upcoming earnings report won’t be all that great.
eBay’s split due to performance issues
In a report dated Jan. 13, analyst Colin Gillis said the reason for eBay’s split from PayPal is about performance. The company’s stock has declined 2% this year and offers a 12-month return rate of 4.7%. He remains Buy-rated on eBay stock, however, because he sees the upcoming split as a potential catalyst for shares. He expects the spinoff to be completed in the third quarter of this year.
He has two main reasons he isn’t expecting much from eBay’s December quarter. First, he notes that the strengthening of the U.S. dollar will impact the company’s results just as it is impacting all other international U.S.-based companies.
Second, he thinks eBay is still being negatively impacted by the changes Google made to its search algorithm recently.
eBay will probably meet guidance
Gillis expects eBay’s revenue to come in just under the midpoint of management’s guidance range. He believes the eBay Marketplace will again underperform the rest of the e-commerce market. He’s projecting a 9.7% gross merchandise volume growth rate compared to the market’s average of 15% growth (according to comScore data).
The analyst projects $4.89 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter, which is a year over year growth rate of 8.1%. The consensus estimate is $4.94 billion. He’s looking for earnings of 89 cents per share, which is in line with the consensus estimate and compares to last year’s 81 cents per share.
Breakdown of eBay’s earnings
He expects eBay’s Marketplace segment to see its revenue grow 6.7% year over year to $2.5 billion. Gillis is looking for $23.6 billion in gross merchandise volume, of which $9.1 billion he believes will be U.S. merchandise volume.
He expects PayPal’s revenue to grow 21.4% year over year to $2.2 billion. He’s estimating total payment volume of $66.7 billion, a 16.8% year over year increase. The analyst expects to see 1.032 billion net payments. Gillis expects to see $215.5 million in revenue from eBay’s Enterprise segment, which would be a 16.8% year over year decline.
Shares of eBay fell as much as 1% during regular trading hours today.
