EBay Inc, the world's largest Internet auctioneer, said first-quarter profit more than doubled, driven by international transactions and its new e-mail payments business. Sales and profit forecasts were increased for the year.
Net income surged to US$104.2 million, or 32 cents a share, from US$47.6 million, or US$0.17 a share, a year earlier, the company said in a statement. EBay's revenue, which consists of fees and commissions for use of its marketplace, rose 94 percent to US$476.5 million. Profit, excluding some expenses, was US$0.05 a share more than analysts had forecast.
More people used the company's electronic-payments business, PayPal and EBay attracted more users to bid on items ranging from collectible Barbie dolls to jet airliners. EBay Chief Executive Margaret Whitman bought PayPal in October for US$1.5 billion to capture more revenue per transaction. International sales more than doubled.
"Every quarter they seem to hit the ball out of the park," said Paul Cook, who helps manage US$32 billion of assets at Munder Capital Management Inc, including about 670,000 EBay shares.
EBay increased its forecasts for every quarter this year.
Second-quarter profit excluding certain costs will be US$0.33 a share on sales of US$500 million. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial forecast US$0.32 cents on sales of US$473 million.
Shares of San Jose, California-based EBay rose as high as US$92.49 in extended trading after the report. They earlier fell US$1.53 to US$89.22 at 4:01 pm in Nasdaq Stock Market trading.
EBay shares had risen 66 percent in the past year, giving the company a market value of US$28.1 billion. That's more than the combined value of Sears Roebuck and Co, Amazon.com Inc and Staples Inc, the largest US department store chain, Internet retailer and office supply merchant, respectively.
The stock, which first sold to the public in Sept. 1998 at a split-adjusted price of US$3 a share, now trades at about 85 times earnings. That's more than double the 31 times for the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.
First-quarter earnings were US$0.36 a share when some amortization, stock-based pay and acquisition-related expenses were subtracted. On that basis, which doesn't conform with generally accepted accounting principles, the company was expected to earn US$0.31.
The value of items sold on its site climbed to US$5.32 billion from US$3.11 billion a year earlier. The number of listings rose 59 percent to 220 million.
"EBay is now clearly a mainstream shopping destination," said Whitman on a conference call with investors and analysts.
Sellers' and bidders' use of the site was fueled in part by EBay's effort to build its brand name by running television commercials late last year and during part of the first quarter.
The advertising contributed to the number of users rising by 7.1 million from the fourth quarter. Active users, or those who have bought or listed items during the past year, increased to 31.1 million from 19.8 million a year earlier.
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