EBay Earnings Jump on Skype Sale in Fourth Quarter

EBay Inc. reported a sharp gain in fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday afternoon, due to the company's sale of Skype and growth in its core and PayPal businesses.

Prior to the release, analysts had worried about the effects of currency fluctuations on the company's results. But the company's Marketplace and PayPal businesses both posted strong growth metrics for the year-end period.

In after-hours trading, shares of eBay rose by more than 1.6 percent.

The company also issued a mixed outlook, with its first-quarter revenue forecast slightly below Wall Street's estimates, while its full-year outlook was above analysts' predictions.

For the period ended Dec. 31, eBay reported net income of $1.98 billion, or $1.51 a share, compared to net income of $559 million, or 42 cents a share, for the same period the previous year.

Earnings on an adjusted basis -- which exclude the effects from the sale of its stake in internet telephone provider Skype to Microsoft -- were $789 million, or 60 cents a share, up from $684 million, or 52 cents a share, in the prior-year period. Revenue grew 35 percent to $3.38 billion.

Analysts were expecting earnings of 57 cents a share on revenue of $3.32 billion, according to consensus forecasts from FactSet Research.

In its Marketplace business, gross merchandise volume excluding the sale of vehicles was up 10 percent to $16.5 billion. Total payment volume for its PayPal business jumped 24 percent to $33.4 billion.

The company said it expects revenue for the first quarter to come in the range of $3.05 billion to $3.15 billion, with earnings between 50 and 51 cents a share. Analysts had been expecting earnings of 54 cents a share on revenue of $3.16 billion for the period.