eBay Watch: Overtaking Craigslist, Skype Launches 'To Go', Takeover Talk

eBay Classifieds Traffic Surpasses Craigslist

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According to Alexa, eBay's (EBAY) global network of classified sites, including the Kijiji, Gumtree and Slando platforms, have now surpassed Craigslist in total traffic. Even without counting its 25% stake in Craigslist, ebay has become the world's most visited classifieds destination.

What's even more impressive is the current growth that eBay's various classified brands are showing, including Slando (400% Y/Y growth), Kijiji (170% Y/Y growth), and Gumtree (50% Y/Y growth). Overall, eBay's classifieds business is growing at over 100% Y/Y.

For those of you still wondering why major search players Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo (YHOO) and Google (GOOG) are interested in eBay, here is yet another few billion page views why.

Note: For those curious folk who want to check for themselves, the calculations are based on Alexa reach statistics for each classified site. Whereas Craigslist uses craigslist.org for all their global sites, eBay not only uses different brands, but also local domains (i.e. slando.sk or kijiji.fr). In order to calculate total kijiji, gumtree and slando traffic, you need to sum the traffic to all the local sites.

Skype Launches Improved To Go Service

Skype last week launched a much improved version of its To Go service. With the service, users get a local phone number which they can call from any normal phone. Once connected, they can instruct Skype to make outgoing calls at the standard Skype rates. Users obviously pay for the local call as well as the Skype rates, but it's still much cheaper than making the international call directly from your mobile. So essentially, Skype is now completely mobile and available on any mobile phone.

The previous version of To Go was pretty useless because a user could only assign and call a single number with the service.

eBay Takeover Talk Resurfaces

This time it's Scot Wingo at eBay Strategies that claims a source has told him Yahoo! and Microsoft are bidding for eBay. This is certainly not the first time this rumor has circulated, although Wingo's source goes as far as claiming Yahoo! has already offered 1.76 shares for each share of eBay. That would value eBay at around $42, arguably a great price for Yahoo. That said, if past rumors are any indication, this is probably just more hot air.

Update: I have been thinking more about this rumor, and my conclusion is that it actually does not matter if it has any legs or not. The point is eBay is trading at takeover valuations regardless of who an acquirer could be. We can discuss for days whether an eBay takeover makes strategic and financial sense for any number of buyers. However, what is clear to me is that eBay has the perfect combination of non-core assets and an underutilized core such that an acquisition would make a lot of sense for a lot of players.

Comments

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I still use Craigslist every day!

2008 Nov 02 04:58 PM