eBay Losing to Yahoo! and Local Competitors in Asian Online Auctions

Excerpt from our Wall Street Breakfast, a one-page summary of this morning's key market-moving and stock-moving stories:

HEARD ON THE STREET: China May Be eBay's Latest Challenge As Local Rivals Eat Into Market [Wall Street Journal]

Summary: In China, eBay has fallen from being first in on-line auction market share to second this year with only 29% compared to Alibaba.com's TaoBao's 67%. Yahoo! by the way owns a 40% stake in Alibaba. Growth in listings has slowed substantially since TaoBao began offering free listings. Also, the CEO of eBay's China unit, Eachnet, resigned suddenly late last month, although an eBay spokesman said he had completed his scheduled tenure. Meanwhile, Chinese newspapers are reporting eBay is discussing a possible sale of part or all of Eachnet to Hutchison Whampoa's media flagship, Tom Group. This is regarded as a negative development given the nearly $300 million invested in Eachnet. The situation isn't much better in South Korea, where eBay also lost its top market share spot to local competitor Gmarket, of which Yahoo! owns a minority stake. Yahoo! seems to have the upper hand in Asia where it earlier beat eBay to market in Japan influencing the latter's exit in 2002.
Related links: IRG: eBay in negotiations to sell/merge China business with Hutchison Whampoa's Tom Group • Online Auction Market in China: eBay/EachNet vs. Yahoo!/TaoBao • CEO Whitman: eBay "Behind a Tad in China" • Yahoo and eBay: Undervalued • Liking the Internet Big-3 Long-Term • eBay's Core Listings Remain Solid - Shares Remain Materially Undervalued • eBay: Runaway SG&A Expenses Dragging Down The Stock • eBay Listings for 3Q'06 Continue to Track Ahead of Estimates • Ebay's Growth, Margins Remain Remarkable • Highlights from Korean GMarket's SEC Filing • Conference call transcripts: eBay Q2 2006 • TOM Online Q1 2006 • Yahoo! Q2 2006
Potentially impacted stocks and ETFs: eBay (EBAY), Gmarket (GMKT), TOM Online (TOMO), Yahoo! (YHOO)

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Comments

[pressure wa...:]

Ebay has lost on many Asian markets, but it is still super powerful in North America. One thing though tickles me, how are they going to deal with reverse auctions sites that are becoming more and more popular. Here is what I mean www.oltiby.com

2006 Nov 05 12:54 AM

[siya:]

what is the main reason of down fall of ebay?

Oct 07 02:53 AM