Although revenue increased by 35 percent compared to the same quarter last year, net income for eBay moved down by three percent as stock-based compensation expenses impacted the bottom line.
EBay has not accounted for stock options before in its financial numbers. By treating the $58.3 million of stock-based compensation as an expense, net income for the first quarter dropped to $248.3 million or 17 cents per share.
The company’s revenue boomed during the period. EBay disclosed $1.39 billion for the quarter. That and the earnings per share both exceeded eBay’s own high-end of guidance they had provided to investors and analysts.
However, the lowered earnings plus a generally cautious outlook espoused by eBay executives during the earnings announcement incurred the wrath of investors. In after hours trading, eBay dropped $1.93 to $38.42 per share.
“With a strong first quarter and a few things we want to monitor, we think it’s prudent at this stage to be conservative as we look to the second quarter,” eBay CFO Bob Swan said. “As we go into the second and third quarter … those are traditionally slow quarters.”
eBay now has almost 130 million registered users. 75.4 million users either bid, bought, or sold items on eBay. Listings for the first quarter totaled over 575 million.
$12.5 billion in merchandise moved in eBay sales. About a third of that figure, $4.3 billion, came from Buy It Now transactions, where bidders immediately pay a listed price for an item rather than go through the bidding process.
eBay’s other businesses, PayPal and Skype, also received mentions from the company. We touched on those in our Daily Focus on sister site IFN.
—
Tag:
Add to document.write(“Del.icio.us”) | DiggThis | Yahoo! My Web | PreFound.com
Bookmark Murdok: 
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
