eBay 2015 Annual Report Download - page 6

has long been a leader in this area, and we will continue to enhance our “flywheel,” which we believe will
provide strong competitive advantages for us going forward.
Our Strategic Priorities
From our first seller in 1995, we have grown to tens of millions of sellers on eBay. Our community of
buyers is now more than 160 million strong. The eBay of today has changed considerably since our early days,
and the eBay of tomorrow will change even more. While eBay was once an auction site selling vintage items,
today 80% of the items sold on eBay are new, and at any given time we have over 800 million live listings. Our
marketplace has never been as big as it is now, and there are few companies currently in the commerce industry
with the scale and reach of eBay.
To deliver a more robust commerce platform, in 2015 we embarked on a significant, long-term effort to
evolve our core eBay marketplace, moving away from a listings-based format toward a product-based format. As
part of this, we began collecting product data from our sellers as they list their inventory, allowing us to offer
greatly improved user experiences, and to build machine learning capabilities to process a global, accessible
catalogue of things.
During the year we also took steps to evolve eBay’s mobile experience, shifting toward a discovery-based
experience for buyers that also enhances our simplified mobile selling experience. Moving forward, we will
continue to iterate our mobile platform as we further enhance the user experience and drive increased adoption
and usage on mobile.
We also stepped up our engagement with the core buyers and sellers who create eBay’s vibrant marketplace.
We reorganized our business along strong regional category lines, and we announced a number of significant
changes to our seller policies. These changes, which include more objective standards, are intended to help
small- and medium-sized sellers be more successful on our platform and better reward sellers who provide great
service to eBay buyers.
Financial and Business Highlights
In 2015, we executed our plan and delivered on our financial and business commitments, meeting our
targets for growth in Gross Merchandise Volume (“GMV”), revenue and net income.
eBay Inc.’s total GMV was $81.7 billion, up 5% year-over-year on a foreign exchange (“FX”) neutral basis
and down 1% on an as-reported basis, reflecting the impact of a strong U.S. dollar. Revenue was $8.6 billion,
growing 5% annually on an FX-Neutral basis and down 2% on an as-reported basis. Net income from continuing
operations was $1.9 billion or $1.60 per diluted share. In addition to this, eBay Inc.’s active buyer base grew by
eight million, to 162 million total active buyers, representing 5% growth on a year-over-year basis.
With respect to the Marketplace platform, GMV was $78.1 billion in 2015, representing a 5% increase year-
over-year on an FX-Neutral basis and down 2% on an as-reported basis. Revenue was $7.2 billion, up 3% year-
over-year on an FX-Neutral basis and down 4% on an as-reported basis.
Our StubHub platform, the largest ticket marketplace in the U.S., accelerated year-over-year with GMV of
$3.6 billion growing 13% and revenue of $725 million up 15%. During the year, we made a number of product
and experience enhancements to the StubHub platform, which we believe contributed to StubHub’s strength.
The Classifieds platform continued its strong momentum in 2015 with revenue of $703 million growing
15% year-over-year on an FX-Neutral basis, down 2% on an as-reported basis.
The Right Strategy for the Future
This is an exciting time for technology disruption and commerce specifically. We are actively embracing the
trends that are impacting the lives of billions of people around the world. I am confident that we are transforming
eBay to continue to be a leader, while driving eBay’s stable and profitable long-term growth.