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eBay soars on earnings
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October 19, 2000: 6:29 p.m. ET
Online auction firm beats 3Q expectations; revenue jumps 94%
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Proving to be the exception to the run of dot.com failures, Internet auctioneer eBay Inc. topped third-quarter estimates by 3 cents and posted a 94 percent gain in revenue.
The results sent eBay (EBAY: Research, Estimates) shares up $10.69, or 18.7 percent, to $67.88 in after-hours trading on Instinet.
 The San Jose, Calif.-based company posted net income, excluding charges, of $19.1 million, or 7 cents a diluted share, compared with $3 million, or 1 cent a diluted share, in the year-ago period. Analysts had expected eBay to earn 4 cents a share.
eBay reported net income, including one-time charges, of $15.2 million, or 5 cents per diluted share, compared with $1.2 million, or zero per share, in the year-ago quarter.
Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 was $113.4 million, versus $58.5 million for the same period last year, beating Street forecasts of $107 million.
For the nine months ended Sept. 30, eBay's revenue surged 97 percent to $297.4 million from $150.8 million. Net income for the period rose to $24.43 million, or 9 cents per share, from $5.77 million, or 2 cents.
 The company's number of online users jumped 146 percent to 18.9 million in the third quarter, compared with 7.7 million in the year-ago quarter.
"In the last quarter, which is typically one of our seasonally slower growth quarters, eBay added a record 2.9 million new registered users to our community ... no metric demonstrates [eBay's success] better than our current annualized run-rate of $5.4 billion in gross merchandise sales," said Meg Whitman, eBay president and chief executive officer.
Guidance going forward
Last month, eBay's management announced a revenue goal of $3 billion in 2005, which would imply a revenue growth rate of close to 50 percent a year until that date.
eBay management reiterated that goal in an analyst conference call late Thursday, and specified projections for the fourth quarter and 2001.
 The company said that for the rest of the year it is comfortable with the consensus expectations of a repeat of the third quarter.
For 2001, eBay expects revenues of $630 million, equal to roughly 50 percent year-over-year growth and expects gross margins to improve to the low 80s by year-end 2001.
eBay also expects operating profit, excluding items, to slowly increase within the range of 18 to 23 percent during 2001.
"The third quarter was another very strong quarter of accomplishments and financial results," said Whitman. "We are extremely pleased with eBay's current market position and momentum, in terms of user growth, activities and profit." 
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eBay
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