EBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) reports its first-quarter earnings today after closing bell, and investors will be looking for signs of commerce growth. The company has either met or exceeded the expectations of analysts in every quarter for the last two years, and its stock received a boost from the company’s strong analyst day last month.
Consensus for the company is earnings of 62 cents per share on $3.77 billion in revenue. In January, eBay guided for 60 to 62 cents per share on $3.65 to $3.75 billion in revenue.
Benchmark analyst Daniel L. Kurnos issued a report to investors this morning with his expectations for the stock. The company called for an aggressive 60 percent revenue growth in 2015 over its 2012 revenue, and he said this morning that he’s “consistently believed” that the company’s long-term outlook was understated.
He said it’s possible that eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) could even exceed the top of its targets for new growth, depending on how quickly mobile commerce is adopted. However in the near term, he said they’re cautious because of tight retail inventories, fee cuts, pressure from credit card companies and limited discretionary spending expansion.
Benchmark analysts are looking for eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) to report 15 percent revenue growth year over year to $3.76 billion, which is just under the consensus. They’re looking for 10 percent growth in Marketplaces and 21 percent growth in Payments. They predict that growth lagged in February and then picked up again in March, which should put the company’s report in line with expectations.
Kurnos said in addition to eBay’s actual earnings and guidance for its second quarter, he predicts that there will be comments made on Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA)’s “staged wallet fee,” which affects PayPal and other digital intermediaries. He said investors should note that the fee doesn’t apply to ecommerce wallets, which does limit its impact on eBay.
Benchmark analysts maintained their fiscal year 2013 estimates but increased their fiscal year 2014 estimate by $200 million to $19.1 billion, indicating a growth of 16.5 percent. They set their price target at $63 per share and have given the stock a Buy rating.
As of the moment of this writing, shares of eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) started out the trading day by falling less than 1 percent.
