eBay 2011 Annual Report Download - page 6

Download and view the complete annual report

Please find page 6 of the 2011 eBay annual report below. You can navigate through the pages in the report by either clicking on the pages listed below, or by using the keyword search tool below to find specific information within the annual report.

Page out of 159

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • 34
  • 35
  • 36
  • 37
  • 38
  • 39
  • 40
  • 41
  • 42
  • 43
  • 44
  • 45
  • 46
  • 47
  • 48
  • 49
  • 50
  • 51
  • 52
  • 53
  • 54
  • 55
  • 56
  • 57
  • 58
  • 59
  • 60
  • 61
  • 62
  • 63
  • 64
  • 65
  • 66
  • 67
  • 68
  • 69
  • 70
  • 71
  • 72
  • 73
  • 74
  • 75
  • 76
  • 77
  • 78
  • 79
  • 80
  • 81
  • 82
  • 83
  • 84
  • 85
  • 86
  • 87
  • 88
  • 89
  • 90
  • 91
  • 92
  • 93
  • 94
  • 95
  • 96
  • 97
  • 98
  • 99
  • 100
  • 101
  • 102
  • 103
  • 104
  • 105
  • 106
  • 107
  • 108
  • 109
  • 110
  • 111
  • 112
  • 113
  • 114
  • 115
  • 116
  • 117
  • 118
  • 119
  • 120
  • 121
  • 122
  • 123
  • 124
  • 125
  • 126
  • 127
  • 128
  • 129
  • 130
  • 131
  • 132
  • 133
  • 134
  • 135
  • 136
  • 137
  • 138
  • 139
  • 140
  • 141
  • 142
  • 143
  • 144
  • 145
  • 146
  • 147
  • 148
  • 149
  • 150
  • 151
  • 152
  • 153
  • 154
  • 155
  • 156
  • 157
  • 158
  • 159

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.
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 refer to “GSI,” we mean the ecommerce and interactive marketing services provided by GSI Commerce, which we purchased in June 2011.
When we refer to “Skype,” we mean the Internet communications offerings provided by Skype Technologies S.A., which we sold in November
2009. As part of the sale, we maintained a 30 percent equity interest in the buyer of Skype, which we sold to Microsoft Corp. in October 2011.
We are a global commerce platform and payments leader. We enable commerce through three reportable segments: Marketplaces,
Payments and GSI. These segments provide online platform, services and tools to help individuals and small, medium and large merchants around
the globe establish online and mobile commerce and payments. In addition, through an initiative we refer to as X.commerce, we have 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. As of December 31, 2011, we had more than 100 million active users transacting on our sites, millions of
merchants using one or more of our platforms, and a developer community with more than 800,000 members using our APIs. We operate a
vibrant global marketplace designed to bridge online, mobile and offline shopping and enable consumers to find what they want, when they want
it. See the definition of "active users" in our Marketplaces and Payments discussions below.
For financial information about our reportable segments as well as the geographic areas where we conduct business, please see "Note 6 –
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
Marketplaces brings buyers and sellers together through fully automated and easy-to-use online websites and mobile applications that are
generally available throughout the world at any time, including through localized eBay.com sites in many countries. We had approximately 100.4
million active users at the end of 2011, compared to approximately 94.5 million at the end of 2010. We define an active user as any user who bid
on, bought or listed an item on any of our eBay Marketplaces trading platforms, excluding users of Half.com, StubHub, and our Korean
subsidiaries, during the preceding 12-month period. Users may register more than once, and as a result may have more than one account.
Our Marketplaces segment includes our core ecommerce platform eBay.com, our vertical shopping sites such as StubHub, Fashion, Motors
and Half.com, our classifieds websites such as Marktplaats.nl and mobile.de, and advertising
4
ITEM 1:
BUSINESS