eBay (EBAY) Tops Q4 EPS by 1c; Enters Standstill Agreement with Icahn
eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) reported Q4 EPS of $0.90, $0.01 better than the analyst estimate of $0.89. Revenue for the quarter came in at $4.9 billion versus the consensus estimate of $4.93 billion.
eBay Inc.’s commerce and payments ecosystems continued to increase the role they play in global commerce with mobile gaining share. Mobile payment volume grew 58% in the fourth quarter to $45.6 billion for the full year representing 20% of total volume. Mobile commerce volume grew 30% in the fourth quarter to $27.9 billion for the full year representing 34% of total volume. In the fourth quarter, cross-border trade grew 20%, representing 21% of total company ECV.
PayPal net total payment volume (TPV) grew 24% in the fourth quarter with Merchant Services volume up 33% and on-eBay volume up 3%. Revenue grew to $2.2 billion. PayPal gained 4.6 million new active registered accounts in the quarter and 18.9 million for the full year, up 13% to 162 million. Global on-eBay penetration increased to 80.8%. PayPal product innovations and investment to make payments simple and easier resulted in accelerating transaction growth, up 25% in the quarter, representing more than 3.6 billion transactions for the full year.
eBay Marketplaces gross merchandise volume (GMV) grew 2%, with the U.S. up 3% and International up 1%. Revenue grew to $2.3 billion. Marketplaces gained 2.9 million new buyers in the quarter and 14.9 million for the full year, up 11% to 155 million. Traffic was impacted by both the decline in new users due to SEO changes and the occasional buyer not returning to our site or being met with increased friction due to the password reset when they did come. In addition, the rising dollar negatively impacted export volume in the U.S. We are taking decisive action to focus the business in an effort to simplify and speed up decision making while re-aligning the cost structure to create capacity to invest. We are prioritizing our resources towards our core shoppers and we are doubling down on areas of strength like our $2 billion GMV Deals business.
Looking forward to 2015, we will be simplifying organizational structures to focus the businesses and ensure that we are set-up to compete and win. During the first quarter, we plan to reduce our workforce globally by approximately 2,400 positions which a represents about 7% of our total workforce across eBay Marketplaces, PayPal, and eBay Enterprise. We will also be exploring strategic options for eBay Enterprise, including a sale or IPO. Enterprise is a strong business and a leading partner for large retailers, managing mission critical components of their e-commerce initiatives. However, it has become clear that it has limited synergies with either business and a separation will allow both to focus exclusively on their core markets, as we create two independent world class companies.
The company also announced today that it has entered into a standstill agreement with investor Carl Icahn, the company’s largest active shareholder. In addition to certain corporate governance provisions to be adopted by PayPal as an independent company at the time of its spin-off from eBay Inc., the agreement also appoints Icahn Capital executive Jonathan Christodoro to eBay Inc.’s current Board of Directors. On September 30, 2014, eBay Inc. announced that its board of directors had approved a plan to separate the company’s eBay and PayPal businesses into two independent publicly traded companies in 2015, subject to customary conditions. The agreement with Mr. Icahn allows him to determine which board Mr. Christodoro will serve on at the time of separation.
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