The ecommerce platform eBay beat market expectations for quarterly revenue on Tuesday night, helped by strong consumer spending during the holiday season and strength in its focus categories such as refurbished goods and auto parts.
The upbeat results show that eBay’s marketplace, which serves as a hub for buyers and sellers from around the world, is expected to benefit as consumers loosen budgets and spend heavily amid an easing economy.
The company reported revenue of $2.56 billion, beating analysts’ average estimate of $2.51 billion, and added a further $2 billion to an existing stock buyback scheme, increasing the total stock repurchase programme to $3.4 billion.
In late trading on Wall Street eBay shares rose $1.56, or 3.7 per cent, to $46.02, valuing the online retailer at about $23 billion.
Gross merchandise volume, a key industry gauge that denotes the total volume of goods and services sold on the marketplace, rose 2 per cent to $18.59 billion in the fourth quarter, up from $18.23 billion a year ago.
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The company, which announced about 1,000 job cuts last month, was launched in 1995 as AuctionWeb by Pierre Omidyar, who described it as a site “dedicated to bringing together buyers and sellers in an honest and open marketplace”. The first item to be listed was a broken laser printer and by 1997 it had sold its millionth item.
