eBay suffers decline in profits as revenues for StubHub, other divisions drop

eBay’s financial results for the second quarter which ended June 30, 2009 show the online auctions giant’s net income fell 29 percent from last year as its Marketplaces unit, which includes StubHub, suffered from the impact of a strong dollar and the tenuous macroeconomic climate.

Net income fell to $327 million compared to $460 million in the first quarter while second quarter revenue fell to $2.10 billion, a decrease of $97.7 million from last year. eBay’s commitment to fast growing, low margin business saw GAAP operating margins decrease to 19.6 percent from last year’s 24.8 percent.

According to exclusive TicketNews’s Top Sellers Rankings, StubHub is consistently ranked as the industry’s top secondary ticket reseller. The Marketplaces division also consists of eBay, Shopping.com and Kijiji.

While eBay does not release individual financial information for StubHub, the report shows the Marketplace divisions posted $1.26 billion in revenue, a 14 percent decrease from last year. In a conference call with investors, eBay CFO Bob Swan acknowledged the year-over-year revenue decrease in the Marketplaces unit but noted a positive momentum from first quarter to second quarter in that revenue increased four points.

CEO John Donahue concurred: “I would say the market, as best as we can tell, is stable and we saw some modest improvement in the second half of June.”

“We have a lot of work to do,” he added, “this is going to be a steady and consistent process.”

Despite the loss in revenue, the quarter results exceeded analyst’s estimates and the news of stabilization in the Marketplaces unit caused eBay stock to climb11 percent on the Nasdaq July 23.