eBay reported financial results for its quarter ended March 31, 2005 with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. The company reported record consolidated Q1-05 net revenues of $1.032 billion, up 36% year over year; the results exceeded the high end of the company's guidance of $1.030 billion for net revenues.
Gross profit was $845.4 million, or 82% of net revenues, consistent with the percentage reported in Q1-04, and higher than the 81% reported in Q4-04. The sequential percentage increase was primarily a result of an increase in the Payments segment gross margin.
"A record jump in registered users, record GMV, tremendous PayPal growth, and record net revenues all highlighted a wonderful quarter for eBay," said Meg Whitman, President and CEO of eBay. "The eBay community is thriving, and we're in an excellent position to deliver on both the top line and profit goals we've set out for 2005 and beyond."
Highlights
US Marketplace net revenues totaled $404.8 million in Q1-05, representing 20% year-over-year growth.
International Marketplace net revenues totaled $393.8 million in Q1-05, representing 52% year-over-year growth.
Payments net revenues totaled $233.1 million in Q1-05, representing 47% year-over-year growth.
Cumulative confirmed registered users at the end of Q1-05 totaled 147.1 million, representing a 40% increase over the 104.8 million users reported at the end of Q1-04.
Active users, the number of users on the eBay platform who bid, bought, or listed an item within the previous 12 month period, increased to 60.5 million in Q1-05, a 34% increase over the 45.1 million active users reported in the same period a year ago.
New listings totaled a record 431.8 million in Q1-05, 32% higher than the 327.7 million listings reported in Q1-04. New listings in Q1-05 included 32.0 million new eBay Stores listings, compared to 8.0 million new eBay Stores listings in Q1-04.
Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV), the total value of all successfully closed listings on eBay's trading platforms, was $10.6 billion, representing a 32% year-over-year increase from the $8.0 billion reported in Q1-04.
PayPal's business had 71.6 million total accounts at the end of Q1-05, which included all accounts and users whether registered or not, a 57% increase from the 45.6 million reported in Q1-04. TPV, the dollar volume of payments initiated through the PayPal system, was $6.2 billion in Q1-05, a 44% increase from the $4.3 billion reported in Q1-04.
Operating income was $335.6 million, or 33% of net revenues, a 26% increase over the $266.7 million reported in Q1-04. Pro forma operating income increased 28% year over year to $367.4 million, or 36% of net revenues.
GAAP net income increased 28% year over year to $256.3 million, or $0.19 per diluted share.
Key Category Performance
Based on Q1-05 GMV, the eBay Marketplace has twelve categories that delivered $1 billion or more in worldwide annualized GMV:
eBay Motors at $12.9 billion;
Consumer Electronics at $3.4 billion;
Computers at $3.2 billion;
Clothing & Accessories at $3.1 billion;
Books/Movies/Music at $2.7 billion;
Home & Garden at $2.2 billion;
Collectibles at $2.2 billion;
Sports at $1.9 billion;
Toys at $1.7 billion;
Jewelry & Watches at $1.6 billion;
Business & Industrial at $1.4 billion;
Cameras & Photo at $1.3 billion.
eBay's fixed price trading contributed approximately $3.2 billion or 30% of total GMV during Q1-05, primarily from eBay's "Buy It Now" feature and from Half.com.
At the end of Q1-05, eBay hosted approximately 264,000 stores worldwide, with approximately 158,000 stores hosted on the U.S. site.
In January 2005, eBay announced a dramatic fee increase for eBay Storeowners on the U.S. Website. Looking back over the last 4 quarters, Q1-05 is the first time the number of U.S. Stores has decreased. The 2 percent decrease in the number of U.S. Stores is in contrast to the 14 percent increase in the number of non-U.S. Stores.
Q2-04: 121,000 U.S. eBay Stores
Q3-04: 143,000 U.S. eBay Stores (an increase of 18% from the previous quarter);
Q4-04: 161,000 U.S. eBay Stores (an increase of 13% from the previous quarter);
Q1-05: 158,000 U.S. eBay Stores (a decrease of 2% from the previous quarter).
eBay does not break out U.S. versus international Store listings, but looking at Store listings worldwide shows:
Q1-04: 8 million eBay Store listings (an increase of 57% from the previous quarter);
Q2-04: 16 million eBay Stores listings (an increase of 105% from the previous quarter)
Q3-04: 20 million eBay Stores listings (an increase of 24% from the previous quarter);
Q4-04: 28 million eBay Stores listings (an increase of 37% from the previous quarter);
Q1-05: 32 million eBay Stores listings (an increase of 14% from the previous quarter).
eBay hosted a conference call to discuss first quarter results at 2 pm Pacific Time Wednesday. An archive of the webcast is available at http://investor.ebay.com.
http://investor.ebay.com/releases.cfm
