eBay Q4 2025 Earnings: GMV Growth & Depop Acquisition Surprise
eBay's Q4 and full year 2025 earnings showed impressive GMV growth as company doubles down on consumer to consumer (C2C) strength with acquisition of fashion marketplace Depop from Etsy in ~$1.2B deal.
Important stats from the press release:
Fourth Quarter 2025 Financial Highlights
- Revenue was $3.0 billion, up 15% on an as-reported basis and up 13% on a foreign exchange ("FX") neutral basis.
- GMV was $21.2 billion, up 10% on an as-reported basis and up 8% on an FX-Neutral basis.
- Advertising revenue – The company's total advertising offerings generated $544 million of revenue in the fourth quarter of 2025, representing 2.6% of GMV.
- First-party advertising products on the eBay platform delivered $517 million of revenue in the fourth quarter of 2025, up 19% on an as-reported basis and up 17% on an FX-Neutral basis.
- Returned $756 million to stockholders, including $625 million of share repurchases and $131 million paid in cash dividends.
Full Year 2025 Financial Highlights
- Revenue was $11.1 billion, up 8% on an as-reported basis and up 7% on an FX-Neutral basis.
- GMV was $79.6 billion, up 7% on an as-reported basis and up 6% on an FX-Neutral basis.
- Returned over $3.0 billion to stockholders, including $2.5 billion of share repurchases and $531 million paid in cash dividends.
The big headline out of this earnings report is eBay is buying fashion marketplace Depop from Etsy in a ~$1.2B cash deal expected to close in Q2 2026, pending required regulatory approvals - likely including but not limited to getting sign off from the independent compliance monitor assigned to the company as part of a deferred prosecution agreement related to 2019 stalking scandal.
Liz Morton
The deal will bring an influx of fresh, young Gen Z shoppers, as eBay has struggled to meaningfully grow the buyer base of their main legacy marketplace and looks to purchase more buyers through M&A strategies.
Notably, total Active Buyers were reported at 135 Million, which represents minor year over year growth of 1% - but 1 million of that is attributed to the recent acquisition of Norwegian secondhand marketplace Tise, without which eBay would have still been stuck at 134 Million Active Buyers.
With Tise included, that means eBay has finally managed to get back to where they were in Q3 2022, but this still marks the 15th consecutive quarter where they had less Active Buyers than in Q1 2018.
Note: eBay changed the definition of GMV and Active Buyers at the end of 2021 and restated both figures going back to 2018 (chart reflects restated figures per eBay's amended reports.)
Once again, eBay declined to provide specific Active Seller figures, which were last reported at 17 Million in Q4 2021.
"Enthusiast Buyers" - those with at least 6 purchase days, at least $800 spent in the last 12 months and/or buyers who also sell - are still stuck at 16M, which is where they've been since Q4 2022
While 10% GMV growth is an impressive change of pace from recent quarters of low single digits, there's more to the story than eBay simply increasing sales on the platform.
Gross Merchandise Volume is defined as "the total value of all paid transactions between users on our Marketplace platforms during the applicable period inclusive of shipping fees and taxes."
Since eBay GMV counts the total amount of the transaction paid through the platform, that means it includes tariffs and duties for sales where those costs are included and paid by the buyer at checkout rather than paid separately after the purchase through the carrier or at time of delivery.
For example, eBay's Global Shipping Programme in the UK displays prices to buyers which are inclusive of tariffs and fees - which caused GSP prices to the US to skyrocket earlier this year - and this is also true for eBay International Shipping in the US as well as the recent launch of EIS in Canada in October 2025.
Those higher costs may be somewhat balanced out by lower cross border trade, but it still illustrates the point of how GMV can be inflated and muddied by external factors.
The same goes for domestic shipments as well. When carriers increase their rates and/or apply peak holiday season surcharges, eBay gets a GMV boost without having to do anything to actually grow sales.
Similarly, when sellers face growing costs of doing business like those brought on by eBay's recent Promoted Listings attribution changes, eventually some or all of those costs will end up being baked into pricing - which in turn will cause GMV to reflect higher numbers and also increase take rate from Final Value Fees, again without necessarily showing significant growth in the number of items sold.
And like in Q3 2025, both CEO Jamie Iannone and CFO Peggy Alford noted that "a significant amount" of the GMV acceleration could be attributed to bullion and collectible coins as commodity prices rose in Q4 and that they expect a deceleration in demand for Pokémon in 2026 as well, raising concerns that double digit GMV growth may not be a long-term durable trend.
Promoted Listings Ads
Total advertising revenue was $544 million, representing GMV penetration of nearly 2.6%.
First party ads (all Promoted Listings advertising products) grew over 17% to 517 million, comprising 1.2 billion of the roughly 2.5 billion total listings on eBay, while 4.8 million sellers adopted at least one promoted listing product during the quarter.
eBay continues to intentionally reduce third-party ads which brought in only $7 Million in revenue, and also continues to report Off-Platform Ad revenue from subsidiary marketplaces like TCGPlayer and their Qoo10 marketplace in Japan.
Iannone put an interesting spin on these stats, saying eBay reached "approximately" $2 billion in annual ad revenue in 2025.
Revenue increased by nearly 7% to 11.1 billion outpacing GMV by over one point primarily driven by growth in advertising which reached approximately $2 billion in annual revenue.
But do the numbers add up? If we're being generous and count all ad revenue, the total for 2025 would be ~$1.993 B. However, just looking at 1st party ad revenue, that number would only be ~$1.886 B.
Either way, it means eBay did not actually meet their forecast from 2022 Investor Day that they would hit $2B in ad revenue by 2025, hence the need to resort to rounded up approximations.
That may seem like a small nit, but it's an important one - especially considering the controversial new ad attribution model, changes to cost per click budget pacing, and other tricks eBay had to resort to only to still come up short.
Liz Morton
Focus Categories, Recommerce and C2C Initiatives
Iannone has wisely moved away from exclusionary "focus category" only framing, choosing instead to show how focus categories, core consumer to consumer strength and recommerce (refurbished and reconditioned goods) work together to support growth of the platform.
Unsurprisingly, eBay Live was called out as a growth driver in key categories like fashion and luxury watches, with an estimated annualized run rate roughly seven times higher year-over-year, led by rapid growth in the US market and expanded global footprint with recent launches in Germany, Australia, France, Italy, and Canada.
Liz Morton
AI
Iannone says eBay will be expanding the latest iteration of an agentic AI buyer experience after beta testing the original version with a small group of users in early 2025.
He also introduced the "next generation" of AI listing for sellers, claiming to finally deliver the "just take a picture and let AI do the rest" experience he initially promised back in September 2023.
In Q4, we began rolling out the next generation of our magical listing experience. A true breakthrough that moves beyond AI assisted tools to a fully AI native architecture.
Unlike prior iterations where we integrated generative AI technology into legacy workflows, this new experience leverages AI agents from the start to autonomously build listings from images alone.
Now, any smartphone camera can act as an AI agent that guides you on which photos to take for your specific product to increase the likelihood of a sale. In the background, AI agents create the title, category,and item specifics by leveraging advanced models and our product knowledge graph.
AI also provides intelligent pricing recommendations based on real time transaction data, helping sellers balance velocity and price realization to optimize their cash flow.
The early results have been powerful after making this the default listing experience for all new and reactivated listers on iOS and Android in the US.
That sounds exactly like what Iannone described in 2023, but after year and a half delay, the first version still left a lot to be desired.
Liz Morton
Stay tuned for a full breakdown of the "next generation" Magical Listing tool from Value Added Resource!
eBay stock traded up over 6% following the call and Etsy stock popped 14% ahead of their Q4 2025 earnings report scheduled for 8:30 AM Eastern tomorrow.
