EBay shares jump on holiday-quarter beat, strong first-quarter sales forecast By Reuters

(Reuters) – E-commerce firm eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) on Wednesday topped Wall Street expectations for the holiday quarter and forecast upbeat current-quarter sales, helped by a surge in online shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shares of the company jumped over 9% to $63.46 in extended trade on the news.

The global health crisis has forced millions of Americans to stay indoors, leading to a jump in online orders for e-commerce companies including eBay, Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Walmart (NYSE:WMT) Inc’s online business.

Ebay said it expects first-quarter revenue in the range of $2.94 billion to $2.99 billion, while analysts were expecting $2.53 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

The company also expanded share repurchase authorization by an additional $4 billion.

Annual active buyers grew by 7%, to a total of 185 million global active buyers, while refurbished gifts emerged as a top trend for the holiday shoppers, the company said.

The e-commerce firm had 183 million annual active buyers in the third quarter.

Revenue in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31 rose to $2.87 billion from $2.24 billion, beating analysts’ average estimate of $2.70 billion.

Excluding items, eBay earned 86 cents per share, above estimates of 83 cents per share.