eBay published its fourth quarter and full year 2006 financial results yesterday and from all accounts it looks like the company had a pretty good year.  The main highlights, as published in the report, include record Q4 net revenues of $1.7 billion, a 25 cent earnings per share, a $1.0 billion stock repurchase, and an expansion of the existing stock repurchase program to include an additional $2 billion.

The reported Q4 net revenues represented a 29% growth from a year ago and yearly revenues of $6 billion were a 31% increase over 2005's numbers.  In fact, both GAAP and non-GAAP numbers all indicated growth of between 4-35%.

eBay's report also separated their finances out by business unit.  The highlights of those results include:

eBay Marketplaces

• $1.2 billion Q4 sales from eBay Marketplaces (a 24% increase)
• 222 million registered users (a 23% increase)
• 610 million eBay listings in Q4 (a 12% increase)
• $14.4 billion in merchandise was sold on eBay in Q4 (a 20% increase)

Payments

• Net PayPal revenues of $417 million in Q4 (a 37% increase)
• 133 million PayPal accounts (a 38% increase)
• $11 billion in payment volume through PayPal in Q4 (a 36% increase)
• PayPal Merchants made up $3.9 billion of that payment volume (a 57% increase)

Communications

• Skype revenues of $66 million in Q4 (a 164% increase)
• 171 million registered Skype users (a 129% increase)

eBay is projecting and even better 2007 as well.  The company is projecting 2007 yearly revenues of between $7.05 billion - $7.30 billion.  All in all, I'd say eBay definitely has cause to celebrate a successful 2006.  You know what I think about eBay.  This just goes to show that the company knows what it's doing.  Don't be surprised to see much more from them in the coming years.

[View the full report in PDF format]