Global commerce platform and payments leader eBay reported that revenue for the first quarter ended March 31, 2015 increased to $4.45 billion. GAAP earnings were $626 million or $0.51 per diluted share, and Non-GAAP earnings were $943 million or $0.77 per diluted share, driven by transaction growth and expense control.
eBay Inc.’s commerce and payments ecosystems continued to increase the role they play in global commerce, but the strengthening dollar significantly impacted first quarter results and reduced the 9% organic growth rate to 4%. Revenue growth was negatively impacted by foreign currency translation at eBay and PayPal by 7 pts and 3 pts respectively, with benefits from foreign currency hedging partially offsetting the impact at PayPal. Additionally, weaker local currencies in some markets led to reduced demand for goods in export-oriented markets like North America, impacting the growth of cross border trade.
“We had a strong first quarter, with eBay and PayPal off to a good start for the full year,” said eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe. “I feel very good about the performance of our teams at eBay and PayPal. Each business is executing well with greater focus and operating discipline as we prepare to separate eBay and PayPal into independent publicly traded companies. We are moving forward with clarity and speed, with a smooth separation expected in the third quarter. We are deeply committed to setting up eBay and PayPal to succeed and to deliver sustainable value to our shareholders.”
PayPal net total payment volume (TPV) grew 18% in the first quarter to $61 billion, with Merchant Services volume up 26% and on-eBay volume down 1%. Payment volume through eBay Marketplaces was $15 billion, representing 24% of total TPV. Revenue grew to $2.1 billion. PayPal gained 3.6 million new active accounts in the quarter, up 11% to 165 million, and processed more than 1 billion transactions in the quarter, up 24%. PayPal deepened its customer engagement with transactions per active account increasing to 23 in the quarter and monetization per active account increasing to $49. The strong, steady growth of PayPal’s customer base coupled with rising engagement reflects the growing popularity and relevance of the PayPal value proposition globally. We announced two acquisitions to bolster and accelerate PayPal’s ability to partner with merchants and deepen its trusted relationship with consumers. The acquisition of Paydiant helps PayPal extend its mobile value proposition to the offline world for merchants and consumers while its acquisition of CyActive strengthens PayPal’s security capabilities and will act as the foundation of PayPal’s new security center of excellence.
eBay Marketplaces gross merchandise volume (GMV) declined 2%, with the strengthening dollar significantly impacting results. In the U.S., GMV was up 2%, while International volume was down 4%, producing $2.1 billion in revenue. On a fx-neutral basis, International GMV was up 7% and global GMV was up 5%. Marketplaces gained 2.1 million new buyers in the quarter, up 8% to 157 million. While active buyer growth continued to decline on a rolling 12-month basis, we are seeing signs that our business is stabilizing, with both three-month active buyer growth and FX neutral GMV growth flat at 5% on a sequential basis. Sold item growth improved sequentially to 9%. We are continuing to invest to improve buyer and seller experiences and provide consistency across devices while building platform capability to improve traffic.
eBay Enterprise enabled its clients to grow same store sales 10% and generated gross merchandise sales (GMS) of more than $1 billion. Revenue grew to $288 million. We continue to explore strategic options for eBay Enterprise. It is a strong business and a leading partner for large retailers, managing mission critical components of their e-commerce initiatives.
