EBay Inc.’s share price down, posts first quarter loss, forecasts sales that trail average analysts’ estimates

EBay Inc., the largest online retailer in the world, posted its forecast for the second quarter of the financial year, saying that it expects to generate a revenue between 4.33 and 4.43 billion dollars. This projection trails the median analysts expectation of a 4.4-billion-dollar revenue. Currently, the company has faced some difficulties while trying to increase its sales growth.

Mr. John Donahoe, who is the Chief Executive Officer of the company has been recently putting his efforts into improving the results from the e-commerce business by making investments in various services in order to increase traffic generated from customers. The e-commerce sector is considered highly-competitive, especially with Amazon.com Inc., which is a worthy rival of eBay.

In addition, EBay Inc. posted a 2.3 billion-dollar loss in the first quarter of the current financial year. The company explained that the loss included a tax charge, which made possible the repatriation of 9 billion dollars in earnings generated overseas, that werent previously subject to US taxes. EBay Inc. reported that its sales increased by 14% and reached 4.26 billion dollars, beating the median analysts estimate of 4.23 billion dollars.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the Chief Financial Officer of the company – Mr. Bob Swan commented on the future plans of the company: “We are an acquisitive company and we need to ensure we have the resources available to capitalize on targets that become available. To be clear, we are not announcing any large U.S.-based acquisition.”

As Bloomberg reported, the companys Chief Executive Officer Mr. Donahoe said: “We haven’t committed to repatriate any of the cash, so we’ll make that decision as we go along. It simply gives us greater financial flexibility.”

EBay Inc. was 6.09% down to trade at 51.22 dollars per share by 14:15 GMT, marking a one-year change of -2.23%. The market capitalization of the company was 69.45 billion dollars, as of today. According to the information published on CNN Money, the 36 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for eBay Inc. have a median target of 64.00, with a high estimate of 75.00 and a low estimate of 55.00. The median est