De Koopman

eBay legt hen die twijfelen over de groeimogelijkheden van het bedrijf even het zwijgen op. Gisterenavond presenteerde ze in Amerika de cijfers over het afgelopen kwartaal.

Wall Street Journal schrijft (betaalde toegang):

“(…) Rajiv Dutta, eBay chief financial officer, attributed growth in the third quarter to company initiatives that jump-started the auction business in the U.S. and Germany. EBay has been trying to market its auction listings more effectively by adding reviews on its site so Web-search technology companies can pick up that information in their search-result pages. The company also has focused on improving its products and reaching out to both sellers and buyers. (…)

The third quarter is typically eBay’s slowest period of the year so “to see an acceleration of these businesses [in the quarter] is quite remarkable,” Mr. Dutta said. He said the growth was broad based, with strong rates of transactions closing and robust average selling prices in categories such as collectibles, home and garden, and motors.

Payments revenue, which includes the company’s PayPal electronic-payment processing service, was $247.1 million, up 44%. (…)”

Planet Multimedia vult aan:

“(…) Skype internettelefonie wordt net als Paypal-betalingen een belangrijke aanjager van e-commerce, zegt eBay bij de bekendmaking van hoge groeicijfers. (…) Rajiv Dutta, financieel bestuurder van eBay, wordt tijdelijk de baas van Skype in Londen, om daar met Skype’s oprichter Niklas Zennström te werken aan een snelle vergroting van de waarde van Skype voor eBay. Dat betekent op de eerste plaats integratie met alle diensten van eBay, Shopping.com, Rent.com en de Kijiji advertentiesites. (…)”

De Skype-Kijiji-integratie is overigens al een feit.

eBay Nederland noteerde vanochtend 232.000 advertenties. De veilinggroei lijkt zich vooral buiten de Nederlandse landsgrenzen af te spelen.

Zie eerder: ‘Wanneer gooit eBay.nl de handdoek?‘

Update:
Hoewel aanverwant nieuws is het toch zeker het melden waard dat een externe Nederlandse Skype-ontwikkelaar wordt aangehaald in een artikel van Forbes.

Forbes: ‘The New Skype-EBay Ecosystem‘:

“(…) — Software Applications: Dick H. Schiferli, along with a business partner, helped to translate the original Skype into German. Then, in October 2004, when Skype released its application program interface to the public, he saw an opportunity to create applications and started his company, Pamela-Systems. (…)”

Update2:
Business Week over eBays plannen met Skype:

“(…) First, eBay plans to integrate Skype not only into the main site, but its Rent.com, Shopping.com, its 150 Kijiji international classified-ad sites, and PayPal. Second, it’s planning a PayPal Wallet for each Skype account, so people can use money in their PayPal accounts to pay for Skype’s services, such as the ability to call regular phone numbers. Third, it has already started creating a pay-per-call advertising service that will use Skype. Fourth, Skype may provide a way to expand eBay’s business in China and maybe even give PayPal a door into Japan, which eBay had to exit several years ago when Yahoo Japan’s auctions crushed it. And fifth, well, there’s Skype’s own business, which includes additional services such as voicemail and who knows what-all. (…)”