E-Bay Inc Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe said on Thursday that the company would enable $300 billion of commerce in 2015, up 71 percent from $175 billion in 2012.
That forecast includes sales on eBay’s online marketplace, payments processed by PayPal and other transactions touched by the company’s various businesses, such as GSI Commerce.
“That’s one of the ways we will measure our success,” Donahoe said during eBay’s investor day at its headquarters in Silicon Valley.
EBay’s top executives on Thursday will give its latest three-year financial forecasts, from revenue projections to guidance on gross merchandise value (GMV), or the value of transactions it handles on its marketplace.
Expectations run high on Wall Street. Doug Anmuth, an analyst at J.P. Morgan, is expecting revenue of $21.16 billion in 2015 and earnings of $3.98 per share that year, versus $14 billion and $2.36 a share in 2012.
The analyst is also calling for 2015 GMV of $101.87 billion and PayPal transaction volume of $246.9 billion that year.
After bleeding market share to Amazon.com Inc for years, Donahoe began a turnaround effort in 2009 that set the Internet commerce company back on track by borrowing from its larger rival’s playbook.
He took what was then a muddled auctions website and made it easier for shoppers to buy new items at fixed prices and get more free shipping and returns – essentially mimicking the Amazon experience. He also embraced mobile technology, creating shopping apps for smartphones and tablets that brought in new customers.
But eBay’s online marketplace is still growing less than Amazon’s and some analysts are concerned its growth may struggle to keep up with the overall expansion of the online retail sector.
On Thursday, Devin Wenig, president of eBay’s Marketplaces business in North America, told investors the business will deliver “at least” market rates of growth.
Source : Reuters