eBay beats expectations with $11B in revenue in 2011

Fresh off hot holiday mobile sales, e-commerce conglomerate eBay is announcing that it increased revenue by 25 percent and made $11.7 billion in 2011.

The company generated net income on a GAAP basis of $3.2 billion ($2.7 billion in non-GAAP net income) for the full year. eBay closed out the year with $3.4 billion in revenue during the fourth quarter, according to an earnings report released Wednesday.

The retail giant, which operates PayPal, GSI and X.commerce, saw its fourth quarter earnings jump 35 percent from the same quarter last year, in part by a gain on the sale of its remaining investment in Skype.

“We had a strong fourth quarter finish to an excellent year, increasing our confidence in our three-year outlook,” eBay president and CEO John Donahoe said. “We are a different eBay today, no longer just an ecommerce leader but a stronger, more diverse global commerce company shaping the future of shopping and payments.”

During an earnings call with analysts, Donahoe talked up eBay’s impressive holiday sales and the success of its mobile applications, which helped the company rake in money faster than ever. On Cyber Monday, eBay processed more than 10,000 transactions per second, a new transactions per second milestone for the company. And altogether, eBay mobile payment volume reached $4 billion for the year, up five times from the mobile payment volume of 2010, Donahoe said. eBay expects mobile payment volume to reach $7 billion in 2012.

Donahoe also spoke of eBay’s ability to capitalize on an inflection point, driven by consumers and enabled by new technologies, happening in the shopping space. He stressed that the company is no longer just an e-commerce site but a full-service business with products that merge the online and offline shopping experiences.

“We intend to make shopping more locally convenient and more globally accessible,” Donahoe said.