(RTTNews.com) – Online auctioneer eBay Inc. (EBAY) said Wednesday after the markets closed that its fourth quarter profit surged 254% from last year, helped mainly by a hefty gain on the sale of the company’s remaining investment in Skype. The company’s quarterly earnings per share, excluding items, also came in above analysts’ expectations. However, the company forecast first quarter and full year 2012 earnings below analysts’ current consensus estimates.
The San Jose, California-based company reported GAAP net income for the fourth quarter of $1.98 billion or $1.51 per share, compared to $559.2 million or $0.42 per share for the year-ago quarter.
The latest quarter results include a gain of $1.66 billion related to the sale of Skype and transaction related items.
Excluding items, non-GAAP net income for the fourth quarter was $788.6 million or $0.60 per share, compared to $683.8 million or $0.52 per share in the prior year quarter.
On average, 29 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn $0.57 per share for the fourth quarter. Analysts’ estimates typically exclude special items.
GAAP operating margin for the quarter declined to 22.3% from 23.7% a year ago, while non-GAAP operating margin fell to 28.7% from 29.5% last year, mainly due to the impact of acquisitions and business mix.
Net revenue for the fourth quarter rose 35% to $3.38 billion from $2.50 billion in the same quarter last year. Twenty-eight analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $3.32 billion for the fourth quarter.
Net revenues from the Payments business unit, which includes online payment service PayPal, and short-term credit service Bill Me Later, increased 28% from a year ago to $1.24 billion.
PayPal ended the quarter with 106.3 million active registered accounts, a 13% increase over last year. PayPal’s net total payment volume (TPV) grew 24% to $33.4 billion in the fourth quarter.
Fourth quarter net revenues from the company’s Marketplaces business, which consists of eBay, Shopping.com, StubHub, eBay Classifieds and other e-commerce sites, rose 16% to $1.77 billion, mainly due to increased buying and selling on the company’s platforms and growth from acquisitions.
Gross merchandise volume excluding vehicles in the fourth quarter increased 10% year over year to $16.5 billion.
The GSI segment contributed net revenue of $364 million in the latest quarter. eBay completed the acquisition of GSI Commerce for nearly $2.4 billion in June last year.
U.S. net revenues grew 49% to $1.67 billion, while International net revenues rose 25% to $1.71 billion.
ebay repurchased about $250 million of its common stock during the fourth quarter.
In August, eBay completed its acquisition of Zong, a provider of payments through mobile carrier billing, and Magento, Inc., the creator of open source ecommerce platform Magento. Last month, eBay acquired BillSAFE, a provider of purchase-on-invoice technology in Germany. The acquisition extends the company’s leadership in payments by combining BILLSAFE with eBay’s PayPal.
There hav been also media reports that EBay is looking at acquisition opportunities in Japan and China to expand in the Asian markets. With China having a significant internet penetration, the potential for growth is believed to be exponential. At present, the e-commerce business in China is dominated by Alibaba Group and E-Commerce China Dangdang Inc.
Looking forward to the first quarter, eBay forecast net revenues of $3.05 billion to $3.15 billion, GAAP earnings of $0.37 to $0.38 per share and non-GAAP earnings of $0.50 to $0.51 per share. Analysts currently expect the company to earn $0.54 per share on revenue of $3.16 billion for the first quarter.
For the full year 2012, the company forecast net revenues of $13.70 billion to $14.00 billion, GAAP earnings of $1.76 to $1.81 per share and non-GAAP earnings of $2.25 to $2.30 per share. Analysts currently expect the company to earn $2.31 per share on revenue of $13.66 billion for the full year 2012.
eBay shares, which have traded in a range of $26.86 to $35.35 over the past year, closed Wednesday’s regular trading session at $30.34, down 19 cents. The stock is currently gaining 46 cents or 1.52% in after hours trading.
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