Morgan Stanley’s Brian Nowak believes the Q3:16 results reported by eBay Inc (NASDAQ: EBAY) highlight that the company’s ongoing turnaround is still facing execution
risk and is likely to take more time than bulls expect, while being unlikely to lead to meaningful upward revisions in
expectations.
Nowak reiterated an Underweight rating on the company and raised the price target from $24 to $26.
Slowing Growth
For Q3, eBay reported 4 percent year-on-year growth, ex-FX and ex-StubHub, in gross merchandise value (GMV) for Marketplaces,
below the estimate and representing a 100 bp year-on-year deceleration from Q2.
Related Link: The
Silver Lining In eBay's Earnings? Conversion Rate Improvement
“eBay attributed the slowdown to a strategic decision to shift ad spend toward more branded channels (away from discounting and
performance marketing) that typically take multiple quarters to have an impact,” the analyst mentioned.
Continued High Ad Spend
The company expects its increased brand ad spend to continue in Q4 and 2017, which Nowak believes could be the right decision
for the long term, since eBay is working on repositioning itself in the consumer’s mind.
On the other hand, global active buyers increased by 1 million sequentially, lower than the estimate and the consensus, which
the analyst sees as a cause for concern, since “eBay will need to reinvigorate user growth if it hopes to drive faster GMV
growth.”
Nowak believes eBay is once again likely to see slower growth than the overall U.S. personal consumer expenditure in its largest
market, expecting U.S. Marketplace, ex-StubHub to grow 3 percent in 2017.
At last check in Thursday's pre-market, eBay was down 8.52 percent at $29.75.
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Latest Ratings for EBAY
Date |
Firm |
Action |
From |
To |
Oct 2016 |
Wedbush |
Maintains |
Neutral |
Neutral |
Sep 2016 |
Deutsche Bank |
Upgrades |
Hold |
Buy |
Aug 2016 |
Hilliard Lyons |
Initiates Coverage on |
|
Long-Term Buy |
View More Analyst Ratings for
EBAY
View the Latest Analyst Ratings
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