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January 24, 2007

Thinking About Ebay Results Tonight: Consensus, and Then a Guide-Down

Yahoo yesterday and Google's results next week get all the attention from the go-go crowd, but Ebay's results tonights will be important to watch. I'm in the camp that say Ebay comes in near consensus, and then guides down somewhat.

Why? Because Ebay is besieged in many directions. Listings are under pressure from edge classifieds, smarter local listings, and other services, like Craigslist (which only indirectly benefits Ebay). Hosted listings are under even more pressure as companies finally create better and more cost-effective web presence to handle their own businesses more directly.

Turning to PayPal, which has been a big recent driver, Ebay has not responded cleanly, clearly, or well to incursions from Google's Checkout payment service. Granted, the latter is still a minor contributor to Google, and not yet a big current threat to Ebay, but it could quickly become one, and it shows every sign of the required momentum and desire to get there. Ebay is going to up spending in this area, or take a fee hit, or both.

Finally, and just for reference, Ebay consensus sits at earnings $0.28 and revenues of $1.68-billion in the quarter. You can listen to the festivities at 2:00 PST here.

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