eBay shares fall despite sales hike
eBay has grown even bigger in the last three months with sales now topping $1.1bn (£621m), it said yesterday.
Shares still fell, however, as the online auction company had to defend itself over its $4.1bn (£2.26bn) purchase of Skype Technologies, the internet telephony company.
eBay, which has taken the world by storm with its service allowing people to bid for practically anything, has seen net profits up 40 per cent for the third quarter compared to 2004 to $255m.
The results were at the top end of previous guidance, but shares fell as investors worried that profits might yet be diluted because of the acquisition of Skype.
In response to an analyst’s question, president Meg Whitman admitted there was little chance of charging people to make calls on the service as prices would tend towards zero. The strategy, she said, was to become the largest in terms of registered users, the largest number of voice minutes and the largest numbers of developers for the platform.
Rajiv Dutta, eBay’s chief financial officer credited for playing a big part in eBay’s success, is to become the new president of Skype.
The results came as QXL Ricardo, once feted as Britain’s answer to eBay, said it had made an operating profit of £11,000 compared to a loss of £162,000 last year. Its revenues were £2.47m. In America, eBay’s net revenues totalled $449.5m for just the third quarter. It has calculated that so far 168m registered users have used the site. By the same stage of 2004 there were 125m.
