Online auctions giant eBay posted a $228 million increase in revenues for the quarter ended September 30, 2008, in part due to a solid quarter from its secondary ticketing division StubHub. But despite the jump in revenues, eBay’s disappointing forecast for the remainder of the year led to a largely negative reaction from Wall Street.
Overall revenues for eBay for the quarter were $2.12 billion, which represents a 12 percent improvement over the same period in 2007. The company’s Marketplaces group, which includes eBay.com, StubHub and Shopping.com, generated $1.38 billion in sales, which was 4 percent higher for the group than for the same period last year.
Though the company does not break out numbers for StubHub specifically, the division was singled out in the financial statement for having “strong growth” during the quarter. StubHub remains the nation’s leading secondary ticketing Web site, according to exclusive industry rankings by TicketNews.
“We are pleased with our results and continued rapid growth this year,” StubHub President Chris Tsakalakis told TicketNews.
The positive news from StubHub failed to persuade financial analysts that eBay, as a whole, was in stellar shape, however. Some downgraded the company’s stock (symbol: EBAY), as concerns surfaced that the company was losing ground to Amazon.com on the technology and ecommerce fronts. See a stock ticker for eBay below.
In fact, despite StubHub landing a high-profile auction during the quarter for New York Jets personal seat licenses, the company suffered a minor setback soon after the quarter closed when it had problems processing some orders.
“Overall, we are pleased with the performance of the portfolio this past quarter,” eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe said in a statement. “We took a number of steps during the quarter to further strengthen our business and better align our cost structure to invest and compete. We will continue to stay focused on connecting consumers on our various ecommerce platforms, maintaining financial discipline and capitalizing on new opportunities for growth.”
