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eBay beats 2Q estimates
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July 25, 2000: 6:36 p.m. ET
New registered users, more auctions, help auction site boost sales
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Internet auction site eBay Inc. on Tuesday posted a profit of 5 cents a share beating Wall Street estimates by 2 cents on the strength of soaring revenue.
For the quarter ended June 30, the San Jose, Calif.-based online auction site reported second-quarter net income of $13.2 million, or 5 cents a share excluding one-time items and charges compared with net income of $5.1 million, or 2 cents a share in the year-ago period.
Analysts had forecast earnings of 3 cents a share, according to earnings tracker First Call/Thomson Financial.
 Including non-cash and stock-related charges, the company reported net income for the quarter of $11.6 million, or 4 cents a share.
Revenue for the quarter rose to $97.4 million from $49.5 million, a 97 percent increase from the year-earlier period.
"We are very pleased with our second-quarter results," said Meg Whitman, president and chief executive officer. "Everyday the eBay marketplace becomes indispensable to more people and small businesses around the world."
The company also said it felt comfortable that it would meet earnings targets for the remainder of 2000.
During the quarter, the company reported online net revenue of $87.9 million, compared with $38.2 million a year ago.
eBay users grew to 15.8 million from 5.6 million and conducted $1.3 billion worth of gross merchandise sales, a more than 100 percent increase from a year ago, the company said.
Gross margins grew to 76 percent from 73 percent in the year-ago quarter.
In addition, the company completed its acquisition of Half.com, an e-commerce site specializing in second-hand books, movies, music and other items. The company bought Half.com to add a "fixed-price" feature to eBay.
"Half.com expands the choices available for our existing buyers and sellers by adding the feature of fixed price," Whitman told analysts during a conference call Tuesday.
The company hosted 62.5 million auctions in the quarter compared with 29.3 million during the same period a year ago.
Earlier this month, the company auctioned off a rare baseball card, the T206 Honus Wagner card, for $1.27 million, making it the most valuable baseball card ever sold.
Dan Ries, an analyst with C.E. Unterberg Towbin, said he expected a healthy quarter for the company, but expressed concern about the third-quarter.
Ries said if a trend of slowing auction listings begun in recent weeks continues, the company may have a hard time meeting the 9.7 percent revenue growth he forecasts for the eBay.
"Seasonal factors are presently playing a role in holding back auctions, so we will for now hold off on reducing our revenue forecast until we can better judge the magnitude of the September pick-up," Ries said in a research note.
Ries maintains a "strong-buy" rating on the company.
Along with several other initiatives in the quarter, eBay launched its Anywhere service, which makes the site accessible from any Internet-enabled devices such as mobile phones and pagers.
In June, the case of a man who allegedly bid up the price of a painting he put up for auction on the site, a practice called shilling, sparked an investigation into whether people are committing fraud on other auction sites as well.
Shares of eBay (EBAY: Research, Estimates) closed up 1-1/8 to 56-1/4 ahead of the announcement, but ticked up to 58 in after-hours trading. 
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eBay
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