Even with this very small loss for the Internet giant, I am confident that with their strong base of users, numbers like those below really have next to no impact whatsoever on the company as a whole.

Web auctioneer eBay today posted a three per cent drop in quarterly net profit after accounting for stock compensation costs and stuck to a 2006 revenue forecast at the low end of Wall Street’s targets.

Net income for the first quarter dipped to US$248.3 million ($399.19 million), or 17 cents per diluted share, compared with US$256.3 million, or 19 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, the latest quarter profit was 24 cents a share — matching Wall Street’s consensus expectation.

Net revenue rose 35 per cent to US$1.39 billion, matching Wall Street’s consensus forecast, but marking a deceleration in year-over-year revenue growth compared to previous quarters.

“We feel good and on track to deliver the full-year revenue we guided to earlier in the year,” Bob Swan, eBay’s recently hired chief financial officer, said in a phone interview ahead of the report…. Source: NZHerald