Thursday October 22, 12:06 AM
eBay net profit slides for fourth quarter in a row
NEW YORK (AFP) - Online auction giant eBay reported a slide in net profit for the fourth quarter in a row on Wednesday and a cautious outlook for the holiday season.
EBay (NASDAQ: EBAY - news) , which also owns online payments company PayPal and Web communications firm Skype, said net profit declined 29 percent to 350 million dollars, or 38 cents per share, in the third quarter compared with a year ago.
Revenue rose six percent in the quarter to 2.2 billion dollars, slightly better than the 2.1 billion dollars forecast by Wall Street analysts, who had also been expecting 37 cents a share.
"Our third quarter results were strong with PayPal gaining momentum and market share worldwide and our core eBay business showing positive trends," eBay president and chief executive John Donahoe said in a statement.
EBay said revenue fell one percent to 1.4 billion dollars at its core auction site eBay.com and other e-commerce sites. It said international business accounted for 56 percent of revenue from the sites.
PayPal saw revenue climb 15 percent to 688.1 million dollars while revenue from Skype rose 29 percent to 185.2 million dollars.
EBay said Skype added 40.3 million registered users during the quarter and now has more than 520.8 million registered users.
EBay announced in September that it is selling 65 percent of Skype to a group of private equity investors. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter.
The San Jose, California-based eBay said it expects revenue of 2.2 billion dollars to 2.3 billion dollars in the fourth quarter, which would represent a jump of 10 percent over a year ago but on the low end of expectations.
EBay shares fell 4.71 percent in after-hours electronic trading to 23.85 dollars.
"With the soft guidance seen, it is of little surprise at all that shares are down," said analyst Jon Ogg of 247WallSt.com, adding that eBay "had already overly participated in the market rally."
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