eBay Misses by a Penny

The world's biggest online auction company posted net income of $205.4 million, or 30 cents a share.

Excluding one-time items, eBay reported earnings of $226 million, or 33 cents a share, compared with $157 million, or 24 cents a share, a year ago.

Analysts had estimated a profit of 34 cents for the quarter, according to Thomson Financial.

Ebay's stock tumbled more than 11 percent in after-hours trading to $91
on INET after falling over 3 percent in regular trading. The stock rose
over 60 percent in 2004.

Sales rose 44 percent to $935.8 million, up from $684.4 million a
year ago and barely beating analysts' consensus estimate of $934
million for the quarter.

"Ebay's results were weak relative to expectations on Wall Street,"
said Scott Devitt, analyst with Legg Mason Wood Walker. "This is a
company that is priced for perfection and the expectations were for
outperformance in the quarter and a raised outlook for 2005. This
didn't happen."

For the full year, the company logged a profit of $829.5 million, or
$1.21 a share, up 68 percent from the same time a year ago. Analysts
had forecast a full year profit of $1.22 a share.