eBay 2012 Annual Report Download - page 6

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PART I
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933
and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including statements that involve expectations, plans or intentions (such as those
relating to future business, future results of operations or financial condition, new or planned features or services, or management strategies).
You can identify these forward-looking statements by words such as “may,” “will,” “would,” “should,” “could,” “expect,” “anticipate,”
“believe,” “estimate,” “intend,” “plan” and other similar expressions. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that
could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements. Such risks and
uncertainties include, among others, those discussed in “Item 1A: Risk Factors” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, as well as in our
consolidated financial statements, related notes, and the other information appearing elsewhere in this report and our other filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC. We do not intend, and undertake no obligation, to update any of our forward-looking
statements after the date of this report to reflect actual results or future events or circumstances. Given these risks and uncertainties, readers are
cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.
ITEM 1: BUSINESS
eBay Inc. was formed as a sole proprietorship in September 1995 and was incorporated in California in May 1996. In April 1998, we
reincorporated in Delaware, and in September 1998, we completed the initial public offering of our common stock. Our principal executive
offices are located at 2145 Hamilton Avenue, San Jose, California 95125, and our telephone number is (408) 376-7400. When we refer to “we,”
“our,” “us” or “eBay” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we mean the current Delaware corporation (eBay Inc.) and its California
predecessor, as well as all of its consolidated subsidiaries. When we refer to “eBay.com,” we mean the online marketplace located at
www.ebay.com and its localized counterparts. When we refer to “PayPal,” we mean the online payments platform located at www.paypal.com
and its localized counterparts. When we refer to “GSI,”
we mean the ecommerce and interactive marketing services provided by GSI Commerce,
which we purchased in June 2011.
We are a global technology company that enables commerce through three reportable segments: Marketplaces, Payments, and GSI. By
providing online platforms, tools and services to help individuals and small, medium and large merchants around the globe engage in online and
mobile commerce and payments, we can facilitate transactions. Driven by the ubiquity of the Internet and the proliferation of mobile devices, we
believe that the way consumers engage with brands and services is fundamentally changing. They are shopping virtually anytime, anywhere. We
believe that this shift in behavior is blurring the lines between offline retail and online ecommerce, effectively becoming one market for
commerce.
Whether online, through the mobile channel or offline, our monetization strategy remains the same. We are primarily a transaction-based
business model that generates revenue through our commerce and payments platforms. We also generate revenue through marketing services,
classifieds and advertising. We have also created an open source platform that provides software developers and merchants access to our
applications programming interfaces, or APIs, to develop software and solutions for commerce. Our developer community includes more than
800,000 members. As of December 31, 2012, our Marketplaces segment had more than 112 million active users and more than 350 million
listings globally, while our Payments segment had more than 122 million active registered accounts. See the definitions of "active user" and
“active registered accounts” in our Marketplaces and Payments discussions, respectively, below.
For financial information about our reportable segments as well as the geographic areas where we conduct business, please see "Note 5 -
Segments" to the consolidated financial statements included in this report. Additionally, please see the information in "Item 1A: Risk Factors"
under the caption "There are many risks associated with our international operations," which describes risks associated with the foreign
operations of our reportable segments.
Marketplaces
Our Marketplaces segment includes our core ecommerce platform eBay.com, our vertical shopping experiences such as StubHub,
Fashion, Motors and Half.com, our classifieds websites such as Marktplaats.nl and mobile.de, and advertising services. Additionally,
Marketplaces has acquired certain technologies to help further enable new commerce opportunities, including RedLaser to facilitate mobile
commerce, Milo to enable search for goods at local retailers, WHI to offer a more robust ecatalog of motor parts and accessories and Hunch to
improve search and merchandising based on customers' needs and
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