China May Be eBay's Latest Challenge As Local Rivals Eat Into Market Share
Trouble seems to be following eBay, even as far as China.
Late last month, the chief executive of eBay's Chinese unit, Eachnet, resigned abruptly. EBay also is in talks to sell part or all of its Chinese operations to Hutchison Whampoa's media flagship, Tom Group, which provides wireless-communications services, according to several Chinese newspapers. While a Tom Online spokeswoman and an eBay spokesman declined to comment on any possible discussions, such a sale would be a setback for eBay, which invested $100 million last year to further its ambitions in China.
A deal would foster the perception among stock-market investors of "how difficult and challenging the China market has been for them," says Citigroup Global Markets analyst Mark Mahaney, who has a "buy" rating on eBay. "It would be perceived as a negative." Citigroup owns eBay shares and has conducted investment-banking business with eBay in the past 12 months.
China is just the latest woe for eBay, once a star of e-commerce. Over the past few years, the San Jose, Calif., company's growth has slowed and new competitors have emerged. Today, the Internet company is working to stabilize its flagship U.S. auction business -- its largest sales generator -- which has matured and is now producing less revenue per listing. EBay says listings by on-site "stores," which generate less in fees, were rising faster than auction listings and notes that merchants were selling too much look-alike or commodity items such as DVDs or CDs, which make the buying experience less unique and enticing.
EBay is tweaking its flagship site. It raised fees in August to motivate merchants to list more items for sale by auction, rather than in their stores.
The recent China news also shows how global the e-commerce company's business has become, and how difficult that is to manage. International markets offer eBay a chance to expand its audience and accelerate its revenue and profit. EBay has aggressively entered markets overseas in the past few years because it was late behind rival Yahoo in exploiting the lucrative Japanese online-auction market, which eBay left in 2002.
In Asia, eBay has concentrated on China and South Korea. China is crucial because it is the world's second-largest Internet market by users behind the U.S. EBay completed an acquisition of Chinese online auction company EachNet for $150 million in 2003, after making an initial investment of $30 million in 2002. The company also bought a majority stake in Internet Auction Co. in Korea for $120 million in 2001, and then bought the remainder for about $362 million in 2004.
But the international drive isn't going smoothly, especially as more local rivals materialize. In the past year, eBay lost its top position in China's and South Korea's online-auction markets, according to analysts and some market research. In China, it now ranks second to closely held Alibaba.com's TaoBao unit. Yahoo paid about $1 billion for a 40% stake in Alibaba last year. TaoBao had 67% of the Chinese auction market for the first six months of the year, compared with eBay Eachnet's 29%, according to China Internet Network Information Centre, a quasigovernmental agency.
TaoBao has eaten into eBay's market share by allowing users to list sale items without a fee, whereas eBay typically charged for such listings. In the past year, eBay has lowered or waived several listing fees in China, such as store-listing fees, in order to compete. EBay's listings in China have decelerated from 300% year-over-year growth in 2005's fourth quarter to 127% year-over-year growth in the third quarter of this year, estimates John Aiken, an analyst at research firm Majestic Research.
Chinese Internet users say eBay has been slower than TaoBao to introduce new applications and new payment services and some users consider its site less "friendly" than TaoBao's, according to Duncan Clark, chairman of consulting and research firm BDA (China).
EBay faces a similar challenge in South Korea, where its subsidiary, Internet Auction, now lags behind local competitor Gmarket. Gmarket, which boasts Yahoo as a minority investor, unseated eBay earlier this year in terms of revenue by using a savvier product mix and more aggressive pricing, Citigroup's Mr. Mahaney says.
The mediocre showings overseas may have eaten into eBay's stock price. Overall, eBay shares have declined more than 30% since the start of this year. Its price/earnings ratio of 40.60 is more expensive than the Nasdaq 100 Index's multiple of 34 and the Standard & Poor's 500-stock Index's 18. Yahoo's multiple, in comparison, is less costly at 30. As of 4 p.m. composite trading yesterday on the Nasdaq Stock Market, eBay shares were down 48 cents at $29.10 each.
EBay spokesman Hani Durzy says the company is "very happy" with its business in China and believes it is "well positioned" to succeed there over the next five to 10 years. Mr. Durzy adds that Martin Wu, the recently departed head of eBay's Chinese unit Eachnet, completed the tenure that he had been scheduled to be at the company. Mr. Wu is being succeeded by Jeff Liao, the head of eBay's electronic-payments business China.
Mr. Durzy also says eBay's Chinese site is comparable -- if not better than -- rivals' sites, because eBay offers communications tools such as Skype Internet-calling technology and its PayPal online payment services. EBay also developed products and introduced features to improve the safety of the Chinese site last year, which slowed some of the site's growth, he says.
EBay中国业务扩展受阻
EBay似乎麻烦不断，即使其远在中国的业务也不例外。
上个月末，eBay旗下中国业务易趣(Eachnet)的首席执行长突然辞职。据几家中国报纸的报导，eBay还在与香港和记黄埔有限公司(Hutchison Whampoa)旗下的媒体旗舰公司Tom集团有限公司(Tom Group)就出售前者的部分或全部中国业务进行谈判。尽管TOM在线(Tom Online)及eBay各自的发言人都拒绝就任何可能的谈判发表评论，但这次出售对eBay来说无疑又是个打击。去年eBay投资了1亿美元以进一步扩大中国市场的业务。
花旗环球金融有限公司(Citigroup Global Markets)的分析师马克?马哈尼(Mark Mahaney)说，这笔交易可能会让众多股市投资者产生这样的印象：中国市场对eBay来说充满了艰难险阻和挑战。这种印象可能会产生一些负面影响。他对eBay的评级是“买进”。花旗集团持有eBay的股票并在过去12个月与eBay有投资银行业务往来。
中国市场不过是困扰eBay的最新问题。在过去的几年中，曾是电子商务明星的eBay增长速度逐渐放缓，新竞争对手不断涌现。如今，这家互联网公司正在努力稳定其美国拍卖业务，这也是该公司最大的销售来源，但是随着业务发展不断成熟，其网上每件登录物品带来的收入正在不断减少。EBay称，通过网上商店登录的物品其增长速度不断加快，并超过了拍卖登录物品的增长速度，但是这种服务带来的收费收入较低。另外，他们还发现商家的商品非常相似，大多出售DVD或CD等雷同的商品，使消费者的购物体验不那么独特，也不够吸引人。
Ebay也在不断调整其主打网站。EBay于8月份上调了收费，以刺激商家把更多的商品列入拍卖出售的行列，而不是只放在他们自己的网上商店中。
最近这条有关EBay中国业务的消息也显示了目前电子商务公司的全球化程度，以及它们需要应对的种种困难。全球市场为eBay提供了一个扩大客户以及推动收入和利润加快增长的机会。EBay在过去几年中一直在积极扩展海外市场，因为它在开辟利润丰厚的日本网上拍卖市场时已落后于竞争对手雅虎公司(Yahoo)，并于2002年退出日本市场。
目前EBay在亚洲地区的精力主要集中在中国和韩国。中国是一个十分重要的市场，因为它是按用户计全球第二大互联网市场，仅次于美国。继2002年首次投入3,000万美元后，EBay于2003年出资1.5亿美元收购了中国网上拍卖公司易趣。它在2001年以1.2亿美元收购了韩国Internet Auction Co.的多数股权，并于2004年花费约3.62亿美元收购了该公司剩余的股份。
但是eBay的全球扩张行动并非一帆风顺，特别是在当地竞争对手不断发展壮大以后。据分析师及一些市场调查机构称，在过去一年中，eBay丧失了在中国及韩国的网上拍卖市场中头把交椅的位置。在中国，它排在少数人持股公司阿里巴巴(Alibaba.com)旗下的淘宝网(TaoBao)之后，名列第二。雅虎去年出资10亿美元收购了阿里巴巴40%的股份。根据中国互联网信息中心(China Internet Network Information Centre)的数据，今年前六个月，淘宝在中国网上拍卖市场的占有率是67%，而ebay易趣为29%。
淘宝网允许用户免费登录商品，此举吸引了众多用户，因此从通常都要收费的eBay手中抢得了不少市场份额。为了积极应对竞争，eBay去年降低或取消了中国的部分收费（如网上商店登录费用）。调查公司Majestic Research的分析师约翰?艾肯(John Aiken)估计，eBay在中国的登录商品增长速度已经有所下降，2005年第四季度较上年的增幅为300%，而今年第三季度已下降至了127%。
据咨询及调查公司BDA (China)的董事长邓肯?克拉克(Duncan Clark)称，中国互联网用户称eBay在引入新功能及新支付服务方面比淘宝行动慢，还有一些用户说它的网站没有淘宝“友好”。
EBay在韩国面临类似的挑战。现在它的韩国业务Internet Auction落后于当地的一家竞争者Gmarket。雅虎持有Gmarket少数股份。花旗集团的马哈尼说，Gmarket通过更加适合本地需求的产品组合、及积极大胆的定价策略于今年早些时候把ebay甩在了后面。
海外业绩表现平平或许已经对eBay的股票价格产生了负面影响。整体来看，eBay的股价自今年初累积下跌超过了30%。它的市盈率为40.60倍，远远高那斯达克100指数(Nasdaq 100 Index)的34倍，以及标准普尔500股票指数(Standard & Poor's 500-stock Index)的18倍。雅虎的市盈率不到30倍。Ebay股票周三在那斯达克市场下跌48美分，至29.10美元。
eBay发言人哈尼?杜尔孳(Hani Durzy)说，公司对中国业务的发展感到“非常高兴”，并相信该业务会在未来的5-10年在中国市场取得成功。杜尔孳同时表示，近期离职的eBay易趣负责人吴世雄(Martin Wu)完成了他在ebay的计划任职期。Ebay中国电子支付业务的负责人廖光宇(Leff Liao)接替吴世雄担任首席执行长一职。
杜尔孳还说，eBay的中文网站与竞争对手的网站不相上下，因为eBay提供了Skype互联网通话技术等交流工具以及贝宝(PayPal)这样的网上支付服务。他说，eBay去年还开发了新产品，并且引进了提高中文网站安全性的新功能，这也降低了网站的某些增长。
Mylene Mangalindan
