CEO Whitman: eBay "Behind a Tad in China" (EBAY)

From eBay's (EBAY) Q2 2006 earnings conference call transcript:

Meg Whitman - President & CEO

In Asia, we continued to make progress in highly competitive markets that we believe offer tremendous long-term potential. In China, for example, we continued to see strong growth in all key metrics and we're pleased with our overall results. During the quarter, we saw triple-digit listings growth over the same period last year while GMV growth remains strong.

Bob Swan - CFO

We continue to make progress in Asia despite a tough competitive environment. Our focused efforts in China and Korea are starting to show some traction. In China, both new and successful listings growth accelerated on a year-over-year basis versus the prior quarter. In Korea, new listings grew at 112% and our local team is responding well to a more competitive environment, innovating and transforming our platform as the market changes. One example of this innovation is the launch in Q2 of a new mobile auction platform and partnership with SK Telecom, the number one mobile carrier in Korea.

Safa Rashtchy - Piper Jaffray

A quick follow-up if I may. Could you comment on China and Korea in particular? Those are markets that you are heavily focused on and is very competitive. Some of the reports we get suggest that your competition is now number one in those markets -- at least in Korea certainly, in terms of the e-commerce market share.

Do you think that you need to gain a number one position or are these markets different in structure that two players can coexist and winner takes all is not necessarily the rule there?

Meg Whitman - President & CEO

It's early days, Safa, and I don't know the answer to your question. What I can tell you is that while I think we are behind a tad in China, we have been steadily improving our performance over the last 12 months. There's no question that when we cut over to the global trading platform, that actually took a chunk out of our growth rates. We had to make the site more Chinese, we had to get a local team trained and ready to go. But over the last 12 months, our performance has continued to uptick there and it is a long game in China.