EBay Makes A Quiet Acquisition To Add To Machine Learning Capabilities

EBay Inc (NASDAQ: EBAY) has acquired privately-held tech company Corrigon for a price reportedly less than $30 million. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian sees the acquisition as an under-the-radar move to boost eBay’s machine learning capabilities. Corrigon specializes in visual search technology.

Baird’s proprietary eBay marketplace tracker is suggesting mid-single-digit growth on eBay’s platform in the month of September and in Q3 as a whole. Sebastian noted that October and November comps will be slightly more difficult for eBay.

Despite some investor concern about the launch of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB)’s new Marketplace, Sebastian predicts that it will have limited impact on eBay in its current form. He pointed out that Facebook’s Marketplace is most similar to Craigslist or traditional classified ads, whereas 80 percent of eBay’s listings are new products.

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While eBay may not be the most exciting buy in the large-cap internet space, Sebastian likes the stock.

“We continue to believe that EBAY shares represent a good value in large-cap Internet amid ongoing positive secular e-commerce growth trends and the potential for accelerating growth in the quarters and year ahead as core structured data initiatives roll out more broadly,” he concluded.

Baird maintains an Outperform rating and $35 price target on eBay stock.

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