eBay Earnings Q1 2012

A Summary of Tweets Around $eBay’s Q1 2012 Earnings Call

Storified by Perrine V. Crampton · Thu, Apr 19 2012 19:21:51

@ebayinkblog Howdy RBH! Always great to see you filling my Twitter timeline. Hope the news is good Cliff Aliperti

eBay Inc. CEO, John Donahoe, spoke on CNBC earlier today in response to the company’s Q1, 2012 earnings. Here you go:

What does this mean for buyers?
We believe buyers can benefit from WHI’s world class catalog, which provides eBay with the foundation to expand our catalog from auto replacement parts to specialty equipment, racing performance and vintage parts to meet the needs of the automotive enthusiast.

What does this mean for sellers?
WHI makes it easier for sellers to list inventory, automatically populating listing fields including description, image and vehicle application data using WHI’s world class ecatalog, which has millions of SKUs.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Original post from 2/21/12

eBay Inc. has reached a definitive agreement to acquire WHI Solutions (WHI), a provider of software and digital catalog solutions for auto parts distributors and retailers.

With the innovative team and technology of WHI, eBay gains expanded selection and access to enhanced structured data which we believe will enable eBay Motors to improve parts selection and value for customers while enabling parts retailers, distributors, dealers, and manufacturers to reach more customers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

I’m a fairly stereotypical guy for the most part… I like my beer, my sports, and my action movies. Having said that, I’ve never been much of a gearhead and – in full disclosure – my wife is the one who has negotiated the price of both of my previously owned vehicles. From what I can tell, and I’ve been paying closer and closer attention to it lately, eBay Motors makes it pretty simple to find parts for cars – whether you’re a car enthusiast or not – and the integration of WHI seems to further emphasize that ease of use.

With WHI, eBay plans to expand its catalog – from auto replacement parts to specialty equipment – to meet the needs of the eBay customer. In addition to the catalog benefits for eBay Motors buyers, sellers will also enjoy a better experience with an easier way to list inventory, with automatically populating listing fields including description, image and vehicle application data using WHI’s catalog of millions of SKUs.

The plan is for WHI’s talent, technology and client base to be smoothly integrated into the eBay Motors ecosystem. WHI offices will remain in New York, New Jersey and Los Angeles at this time.

Cheers,

RBH

Today we announced that eBay has agreed to acquire Zong for approximately $240 million. Zong is one of the leading providers of payments through mobile carrier billing, with connections with more than 250 mobile carriers in 45 countries. Upon closing of the transaction, Zong will eventually become part of PayPal.

PayPal has 100 million active accounts; millions of people who have already trusted us to provide their digital wallets. And Zong’s expertise in carrier billing means that it has the potential to reach the more than 4 billion people around the world who have mobile phones – including people who don’t have (or choose not to use) bank accounts or credit cards online. By combining Zong and PayPal, we believe we can offer more services to more customers, ultimately bringing even more value to how people pay and get paid.

You can read more about it on the Zong blog too.

Cheers,
RBH

eBay Inc. today announced that it has agreed to acquire Magento Inc., the creator of Magento, a leading open source ecommerce platform. The deal follows eBay’s acquisition of a minority stake in the company in 2010. Upon closing of the transaction, eBay will own 100% of the outstanding shares of Magento. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close in Q3 2011.

It was also announced that Magento will join X.Commerce, eBay’s newly created integrated open source platform group. Something I’m particularly interested in. According to today’s announcement, the group is focused on leveraging the company’s assets and partner technologies to build a strong, robust developer community as a resource for merchants and retailers of all sizes. More details will be shared with developers during the X.Commerce Innovate conference on Oct. 12-13 in San Francisco and I’d like to sit down with key members of the group to share more info here with Ink readers too. In the meantime, here is a video message to developers from John Donahoe, CEO, eBay Inc.

A video message to developers from eBay Inc. CEO, John Donahoe

About Magento
The Magento platform serves tens of thousands of merchants worldwide and is supported by a global community of solution partners and third-party developers. Magento is a feature-rich, open-source, enterprise-class commerce solution that offers merchants a high degree of flexibility and control over the user experience, catalog, content and functionality of their online store. Magento Go, the company’s hosted software-as-a-service solution, provides small and growing merchants with the tools to help them succeed online – from payments to inventory management. Magento is a Los Angeles-based company with more than 290 employees.

The stockholders of GSI approved the adoption of the merger agreement with eBay at the special meeting of stockholders held this past Friday and the merger became effective later that day.

eBay acquired all of the outstanding shares of GSI’s stock for $29.25 per share in cash, or total consideration of approximately $2.4 billion. GSI Commerce will operate as a separate business unit led by Chris Saridakis as its newly appointed president who will report directly to eBay CEO and President, John Donahoe.

Be sure to add the GSI Commerce blog to your blog roll (if you haven’t done so already) and follow along on Twitter @GSICommerce.

Cheers!
RBH

Original post 3/28/11
eBay just announced that it has agreed to acquire GSI Commerce, a leading provider of online commerce solutions and interactive marketing services, for $29.25 a share, or total consideration of approximately $2.4 billion. The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of 2011.

As some of you know I am currently traveling for work so am unable to provide you with a “Behind the Scenes” Ink video interview at this time but will be sure to put one together when I’m back in the office to find out more info beyond the press release.

In the meantime, eBay will host a conference call at 8am PT today to discuss the announcement. A live webcast of the conference call, complete with slide presentation, can be accessed out our IR site: http://investor.ebayinc.com. You can also check out the eBay to acquire GSI Commerce press release and our Changing Shopping website for more info as to how this fits into eBay’s overall business strategy and what it means for all buyers and sellers.

Important to note that eBay will divest 100% of GSI’s sports licensing businesses and 70% of ShopRunner and Rue La La.

eBay believes these businesses are not core to eBay’s long-term growth strategy. These assets will be sold to a newly formed holding company, which will be led by GSI founder and CEO Michael Rubin. GSI will be managed as a separate business unit of eBay, led by Chris Saridakis.

I’m really looking forward to meeting some of the team over there (I’ve worked very closely with at least one person in the past already) and am excited to get the opportunity to share and leverage social and digital media strategies already in place with both companies.

I’ll update as I get more info.

Cheers,
RBH

I was fortunate enough to sit in on my second eBay Inc. analyst day today (although anyone with a computer monitor and an Internet connection could have done so too by accessing the live webcast). The company projected double-digit annual revenue and earnings growth for 2011-2013, with revenues expected to reach at least $13 billion in 2013 compared to approximately $9 billion in 2010.

“New rules of retail are being written today,” said eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe. “Online and offline commerce are changing and converging, and technology is dramatically influencing how consumers connect, shop and pay. We are at the forefront of shopping innovation. We believe we have core businesses, platforms and assets that strongly position us to compete, win and lead on a global scale. We are confident that we will lead the next generation of commerce.”

Outlook
Based on current business trends and expectations, the company provided the following financial outlook for 2011-2013:

* Total company revenues are expected to reach $13 billion to $15 billion in 2013, up from $9.2 billion in 2010, led by continued innovation in both of the company’s core businesses.

* The company expects compound annual non-GAAP earnings growth of 10-14 percent.

* Free cash flow is anticipated to be between $7.5 billion and $8.5 billion and operating cash flow is expected to be between $10.0 billion and $11.3 billion over the three-year period from 2011-2013.

* PayPal is expected to significantly increase revenue to $6 billion to $7 billion in 2013, driven by consumer preferences, market expansion, and innovation in the areas of mobile, digital, social and local.

* The company’s eBay Marketplaces business is expected to achieve revenues of $7 billion to $8 billion in 2013, driven by technology-led innovation and tailored customer experiences that enable buyers and sellers to connect around the world.

I’ll share more images and video as they become available. In the meantime, check out the more than 500 tweets coming out of the event by viewing the #eBayInc hashtag.

Cheers!
RBH

The original earnings live-tweeter, eBay continues to be a standard setter. It’s one of the few to incorporate StockTwits into its distribution. Its disclaimer at the start of earnings call live-tweeting sessions, and use of an unique hashtag for each call, are best practices. But too many tweets for my liking, but no one else complains so I’m wrong. Could say more but Richard’s already gotten a lot of ink here. He’s posted a good piece about his set-up and process.

As some of you already know, I worked with our legal team to create guidelines and best practices for corporate disclosure in both short and long-form social media. It resulted in pre-session disclosure tweets; hashtag creation to identify specific quarters; and the use of StockTwits to track the IR discussion around a specific earnings’ call.

Dominic has written a follow-up post entitled “10 IR Twitter accounts revisited: honeymoon is over” that also revisits our work here on Ink:

This quarter eBay began using StockTwits in addition to Twitter for its famous earnings call live tweeting session. But this didn’t seem to help as click-thrus dropped almost 60%. That said, there were fewer links in the tweets than in Q2. We think there are far too many tweets per session and people are likely to tune out. Still, when it comes to earnings call tweeting and generally engaging his audience, there are few as good as Richard Brewer-Hay. For the Q3 season he donned a bra to show support for the Bling My Bra breast cancer fund raising campaign.

Of course, the positive feedback is much appreciated. The goal of Ink – both in its IR capacities and blogging in general – has always been to engage the audience, solicit feedback, and promote healthy conversations and/or debate around specific topics related to all things eBay Inc.

However, it isn’t the first time Dominic has referenced the high number of tweets during the call in a negative light… and he isn’t the only one to do so either. So I guess my first question is, are the tweets helpful to some? Are they informative? Or do you find yourselves saying, “Uh-oh, eBay earnings today, that means RBH will be spamming me for at least an hour with tweets.”? Because if this is the general consensus then I certainly want to revisit the overall purpose.

The first question I ask myself before we do anything here on eBay Ink is “just because I can do it, should I?” The IR-specific tweets are aimed at informing a group of individuals – regardless of size – that may not have had immediate access to the info otherwise. The concern I have if I “turn down the volume” on tweets around earnings is that analysts could start speculating why I’m tweeting about one aspect of the earnings call but neglecting to tweet on another. The logic being that if I’m going to tweet one statement out of our CFO or CEO’s mouth during the call, I need to capture all of it to make sure I don’t misrepresent our earnings as a whole.

My question to you then is what do you like about the IR-specific tweets coming out of eBay? Are they noise or are they helpful? What would you like me to add and/or takeaway?

After two years live-tweeting earnings I must admit the freshness is lost even on me at times so I want to make sure that you’re getting value out of it to begin with. You should know by now that I’m willing to try pretty much anything if I think it’s going to be of benefit to the Ink audience.

Let me know.

Cheers,
RBH

PayPal delivered another strong performance in Q3, expanding its leadership position in online payments with growth in revenue, total payment volume and active registered accounts. PayPal ended the quarter with 90 million active accounts worldwide adding more than a million new accounts each month during the quarter. And for the fourth consecutive quarter, Merchant Services net total payment volume grew 40% or more year over year. The Marketplaces business continued to make progress in improving the customer experience and drove customer-focused innovation in key areas, including mobile commerce and fashion. Sold items, excluding Gmarket, were up almost 13% year over year and accelerated in the US and UK.

“We delivered strong third quarter results, with great performance at PayPal and stable results at eBay,” said John Donahoe, eBay Inc. President and CEO. “PayPal gained share globally and eBay continued to improve key metrics. Our company is strong and we are managing our global portfolio to balance strengths, challenges and opportunities, invest in growth and deliver consistent performance.”

There are a number of options for you to get more information around today’s earnings announcement. You can listen along to the live eBay earnings call. You can follow along with my tweets in real-time, beginning at 2pm PT. I will be live-blogging here on the homepage of eBay Ink.

You can access the full Q3 eBay earnings announcement.

For folks interested in following the entire conversation on Twitter, the hashtag is #eBayQ310. You can also view on StockTwits.

Cheers,
RBH

Search the hashtag #eBayQ310 for all eBay earnings’ related information tomorrow.

Related Reads
Webcast of eBay Q3FY10 analyst relations call (2pm PT, 10/20/10)
Investor Relations FAQ
eBay earnings legal information

Cheers,
RBH