EBay Earnings: What to Watch

By Laura Stevens 

EBay Inc. is scheduled to announce its second-quarter earnings after the market closes on Thursday. Here's what you need to know:

EARNINGS FORECAST: Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect eBay to earn 45 cents a share, compared with adjusted results of 43 cents a year ago. (The company earned 38 cents a share unadjusted.) The company forecast adjusted second-quarter earnings of between 43 cents and 45 cents.

REVENUE FORECAST: Revenue of $2.31 billion is forecast by the analysts, compared with $2.23 billion a year ago. EBay expected revenue of between $2.28 billion and $2.32 billion.

WHAT TO WATCH:

--STRUCTURED DATA: Investors will be looking for updates to eBay's all-important structured-data initiative, in which the company is making its site more searchable in part by grouping single listings into browsable categories. Executives in the first quarter said that the initiative was drawing more traffic to those pages. It's part of the company's broader push to become more modern and move away from its legacy image as an online garage sale. And it has helped push up eBay stock prices, up about 24% year-to-date as of Wednesday's closing.

--ADVERTISING: EBay's "Fill Your Cart with Color" ad campaign hit the national market in June, analysts note, something that could help eBay gain some summer momentum. The marketplace has made a big advertising push over the past year, targeting new customers via social media and more traditional means like TV. "We continue to expect a combination of increasing visibility through refreshed advertising campaigns and gradual improvement to the core eBay site/app should drive modest acceleration in [gross merchandise volume] growth through the year," add Baird analysts.

--GUIDANCE: Can eBay's push to modernize keep yielding sales and profitability growth? "Guidance will be under the microscope once again for eBay, as each successive quarter in 2017 should show improving top and bottom line trends," write Barclays analysts. Over the past few quarters, eBay has largely delivered -- but analysts will be looking for more.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 20, 2017 08:14 ET (12:14 GMT)

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