Company profile
SEC EDGAR ↗- Industry
- Services-Business Services, NEC
- Listed
- Nasdaq: EBAY
- Incorporated
- DE
- Headquarters
- San Jose, CA
- Fiscal year end
- Dec 31
Financials
FY2025- Revenue
- $11.1B
- Net income
- $2.03B
- Total assets
- $17.6B
| Fiscal year | Revenue | Net income | Total assets |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | $11.1B | $2.03B | $17.6B |
| FY2024 | $10.3B | $1.98B | $19.4B |
| FY2023 | $10.1B | $2.77B | $21.6B |
| FY2022 | $9.79B | −$1.27B | $20.9B |
| FY2021 | $10.4B | $13.6B | $26.6B |
| FY2020 | $8.89B | $5.67B | $19.3B |
Reported fiscal years from SEC filings (10-K) — SEC EDGAR ↗. Stratrix is a strategy publication, not a real-time financial data service.
Decisions on record
2 verified Decision Cases on eBay, and the casebook each one belongs to.
| Fork date | Decision type | What eBay chose | Where it stood | The story | Casebook |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | The Counterfactual | Acquire Skype | Amazon's enterprise value outgrew eBay's (2008) | Read the story → | The Counterfactual Casebook → |
| 2014 | The Fork | Spin off PayPal | The two companies signed a stack of inter-company agreements keeping PayPal a featured payment option on eBay (2015-07) | Read the story → | The Fork Casebook → |
Videos on eBay
Run one of these yourself
The decisions eBay faced, as kits you can run.
Each pack takes one of these decisions and gives you the framework, a deck for the room, a model that resolves to one number, and the sourced cases behind it. $499, one-time.
Decision ForksThe CannibalizationShould you launch the thing that takes revenue from your best business?See the pack →Decision ForksThe Road Not TakenWhat did the decision you did not take actually cost?See the pack →Moat & CompetitionThe Moat AnatomyWhat would it actually cost a challenger to take your customer?See the pack →
The analyses
The Cannibalization Choice · Growth & Portfolio
eBay Killed the Auction to Become Amazon. It Got Half of Amazon and None of eBay.
eBay slowly buried the auction that built it, until Buy It Now ran ~85-88% of listings. The lesson isn't bold self-disruption: GMV that topped $90B in 2019 (a figure that included StubHub, divested in 2020) sat near $79.6B in 2025 on a post-divestiture basis. It cannibalized its only difference and inherited a fight it couldn't win.
8 min
The Cannibalization Choice · Growth & Portfolio
eBay Spun Off PayPal and Got the Smaller Half. By Design.
On its first trading day PayPal was worth $47.1 billion - eBay $34.7 billion. The parent had paid $1.5 billion for it in 2002, then let it walk out the door worth more than the company that raised it.
8 min
The Counterfactual · Decision Forks
eBay Misplaced the E-Commerce Crown $2.6 Billion at a Time — on an Internet Phone Company
The popular story says Amazon raced past eBay in the early 2000s. It didn't — Amazon's enterprise value only passed eBay's in 2008. The crown wasn't seized in a battle; it was misplaced, $2.6 billion at a time, on an internet phone company.
8 min
The Moat Anatomy · Moat & Competition
eBay Is Shedding Scale for Margin — ~70% of GMV Now Sits in a Few Passion Categories
Everyone says eBay is dying between Amazon's scale and Etsy's niche. The truth is stranger: it's deliberately shedding scale for margin, with ~70% of GMV now concentrated in a handful of passion categories - which is both the moat and the trap.
8 min
Tools to try
- Ansoff move finderFramework: Ansoff Matrix
- Business model canvas builderFramework: Business Model Canvas
- Change readiness checkFramework: Kotter's 8-Step Change Model
- Five Forces scorerFramework: Porter's Five Forces
- SMART goal builderFramework: SMART Goals
- SWOT builderFramework: SWOT Analysis
More from Stratrix
The Business Model Wizard
Make the seven choices that define your model, test your numbers against real companies, and meet the rival AI would build against you.
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Set a live decision against the companies that made it before you.
AcquisitionsThe Distance TestDivestituresThe Divestiture TestDiversificationThe Diversification TestMake or buyThe Make-or-Buy TestStratrix Team
Every Casebook, three Strategy Packs a seat each year and Ask Stratrix, for teams that face these decisions all year.
$1,999 a year · $499 a seatWhat is included →New analyses, by email
The defining moves in business, and what they teach, as they publish.