Ebay cuts 2400 people, Consumer-to-consumer electric business stalled

ebay is preparing to split the PayPal business later this year and announce the conclusion of a Carl Icahn break-up agreement that will give investors a new director position. ebay also said it planned to cut 7% of its employees in Wednesday.

The staff is mainly from ebay's core marketplace business (similar to Taobao's Consumer-to-consumer business), the number of layoffs will reach 2400 people.

The layoffs were linked to ebay's fourth-quarter earnings, a large part of which was contributed by PayPal services.

Data show that ebay's core business marketplace revenue growth of 1%, 2.33 billion dollars. In contrast, PayPal's sales revenue grew 18% to 2.16 billion dollars, and revenue from the corporate sector grew 9% to 443 million dollars. ebay's net revenue for the quarter was 936 million dollars. More than 850 million dollars in revenue over the same period last year.

EBay CEO John Donahoe says

"After Google implemented the new algorithm, the ebay auction has a certain impact, many online shoppers are directed to other sites." ”

Before, ebay marketplace a large part of the flow of traffic by Google to import, after the Google implementation of the new algorithm, users search for goods after the Google page more diversified options lead to ebay's potential users are diverted.

ebay also said in Wednesday that it would also make progress in exploring ebay's corporate strategy, including an initial public offering. PayPal will be operated as an independent company. The agreement also points to the appointment of Mr Icahn capital President Jonathan into the board.

Earlier, ebay's biggest shareholder, Carl Icahn, mentioned the break-up plan several times last year and said the spin-off plan was expected to be implemented in the second half of 2015.

Ebay Splits marketplace business and PayPal pays two business for the following reasons:

ebay announced in a plan last September that it would split PayPal in 2015 and create two listed companies to operate independently. The plan is designed to allow the two companies to focus on their own areas and to gain greater room for development. Investors are also looking for mechanisms for unbundling, including more details about how the directors will join the company and how stocks will be carved up.

On the one hand, PayPal faces new competition from Apple, which is bound by Apple's mobile subscribers. Even if PayPal has 1.6 million active users at this stage of the obvious advantage, but Apple's powerful user base once the formation of new payment habits will pose a threat to PayPal. PayPal needs to tell investors how to keep market share, especially on smartphone mobile payments.

On the other hand, splitting PayPal may be a preparation for acquisitions. There have been rumors that Google has tried to acquire ebay's payment business PayPal. Icahn and analysts said that "PayPal can be an attractive acquisition target after separate splitting." ebay's biggest shareholder, Icahn, has been pushing the PayPal division to become a separate company.