eBay Conquers the Wild Wild Web: Fool by Numbers

On April 18, eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY  ) released earnings for the first quarter ended March 31.

• To dig deeper into eBay's business divisions, including PayPal and Skype, read our earnings take.
• Revenues increased by 27.2% to $1.8 billion, driven by growth across all sectors. Sales at Skype, which drives the communications division, increased 123% year over year.
• eBay has a three-star rating in Motley Fool CAPS, our free interactive stock database, beating out other Internet giants Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN  ) and Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO  ) , which carry CAPS ratings of one star and two stars, respectively.

(Figures in millions, except per-share data)

Income Statement Highlights

	Q1 2007	Q1 2006	Change
Sales	$1,768.1	$1,390.4	27.2%
Net Profit	$377.2	$248.3	51.9%
EPS	$0.27	$0.17	58.8%
Diluted Shares	1,384.3	1,437.5	(3.7%)

Get back to basics with a look at the income statement.

Margin Checkup

	Q1 2007	Q1 2006	Change*
	77.7%	79.6%	(1.9)
	26.5%	23.2%	3.3
	21.3%	17.9%	3.5

*Expressed in percentage points

Margins are the earnings engine. See how they work.

Balance Sheet Highlights

Assets	Q1 2007	Q1 2006	Change
Cash + ST Invest.	$3,284.3	$2,704.5	21.4%
Accounts Rec.	$380.5	$318.9	19.3%
Inventory	N/A	N/A	N/A

Liabilities	Q1 2007	Q1 2006	Change
Accounts Payable	$122.5	$101.2	21.1%
Long-Term Debt	$0.0	$0.0	N/A

Learn the ways of the balance sheet.

Cash Flow Highlights

	Q1 2007	Q1 2006	Change
Cash From Ops.	$564.5	$584.2	(3.4%)
Capital Expenditures	$85.4	$133.6	(36.1%)
Free Cash Flow	$479.1	$450.6	6.3%

Free cash flow is a Fool's best friend.

Related Foolishness:

• Fool on the Street: eBay Hunts Windorphins
• eBay Is Back
• As the eBay Turns
• eBay Doubles Down on PayPal

eBay, Amazon.com, and Yahoo! are picks of our Stock Advisor newsletter.  To see other recommended Internet companies, try a free 30-day trial of the service. It's only a few clicks away.

Fool by Numbers is designed to give you the raw earnings information in a timely fashion, putting all the numbers you need in one easy-to-read place. But at The Motley Fool, we believe numbers tell only part of the story, so check Fool.com for more of our in-depth discussion of what the numbers mean. This data has been provided by Netscribes. To provide feedback on this article, please click on the "feedback" button below.