Reuters: Global Markets: EBay sets aggressive 2015 targets, shares climb

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EBay sets aggressive 2015 targets, shares climb Mar 28th 2013, 20:25 eBay Inc President and CEO John Donahoe speaks during a hi-tech industry conference in Jerusalem September 11, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Ronen Zvulun By Alistair Barr SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Mar 28, 2013 4:25pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - EBay Inc has set aggressive three-year targets for its online marketplace and payments businesses, executives said on Thursday, and the company's shares rose more than 4 percent. The Marketplaces business aims to handle $110 billion of sales volume in 2015 by expanding globally and using mobile technology to lure more shoppers, the executives said. The forecast for Marketplaces, offered by its chief, Devin Wenig, was higher than Wall Street expected and represents a 47 percent jump in gross merchandise volume, or GMV, from 2012's $75 billion. GMV is a closely watched measure of eBay's performance. Doug Anmuth, an analyst at JP Morgan, had estimated 2015 GMV of $101 billion. PayPal President David Marcus said PayPal can double the size of its business in the next three years. That means total payment volume, or TPV, processed by PayPal will double from $145 billion at the end of 2012 to roughly $290 billion at the end of 2015. Anmuth was calling for 2015 total payment volume of $246.9 billion. EBay's stock rose 4.2 percent to $54.25 in afternoon trading. After bleeding market share to Amazon.com Inc for years, eBay, under Chief Executive John Donahoe, began a turnaround effort in 2009 that put 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, eBay's Wenig told analysts and investors that the company's core business will deliver at least market rates of growth. "They are saying they have fixed the core marketplace, and they are now positioned to drive incremental growth from local, mobile and global initiatives," said Colin Sebastian, an analyst at R.W. Baird. 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. To get this done, eBay is focusing on three main sources of potential growth - global expansion, local commerce and mobile applications that it hopes will encourage consumers to shop more on its marketplace and use PayPal more to pay for those purchases. EBay is aiming to increase sales in emerging markets and BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China, by four times current levels in three years, said Wendy Jones, an executive overseeing the global push. By the end of 2015, as much as 25 percent of eBay active users and more than 12 percent of global sales will come from BRIC countries and emerging markets, she added. EBay's top executives will give other, new three-year financial forecasts later on Thursday. (Reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Steve Orlofsky; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Tim Dobbyn, and Kenneth Barry) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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