eBay is bringing home the bread, with record-setting profits during the final quarter of 2006. They brought in a net of $1.7 Billion, 29% higher than they did a year ago. They are citing the high figures due to average higher auction selling prices and good performance out of PayPal. They also are looking forward to the future of Skype, which they purchased a little over a year ago, though currently they are a bit disappointed:
But eBay CEO Meg Whitman is less than satisfied. "The monetization efforts we outlined at the time of the (Skype) acquisition are not developing as quickly as we had hoped," she said in an earnings call today. That will teach the company to overpay.
As many know, Skype is doing away with their free service and becoming a fully paid VoIP provider. On a related note, eBay along with Skype was able to take a sigh of relief when a racketeering charge against the company was dropped. The charge was brought against them by P2P giant, Streamcast Networks.