India to be vibrant e-marketplace, says eBay CEO Meg Whitman

ON BUSINESS MODELS: Since we are focused on e-commerce, that’s the area we know best. What I can tell you is that the Internet is changing the way people buy and sell and, given its rapid growth in India, we see enormous opportunity for buyers and sellers here. We’re focused on working with our local community of buyers and sellers to make eBay India an even more vibrant marketplace for trade. We think that with increased broadband penetration, more people will latch on to this concept. The Indian community is enthusiastic about the benefits they find on eBay and as e-commerce grows in India, I’m sure eBay will too.

ON THE CHALLENGES: We’ve seen revenues from eBay’s US business accelerate over the past three quarters so there’s still upside in that market. But there’s no question that our international business has been rapidly growing as well. Now more than half of our registered users and the gross merchandise sales they generate come from outside the US. While our top international marketplaces at the moment are Germany, the UK and South Korea; China and India will undoubtedly become strong e-commerce markets over time. What we’ve discovered is that the benefits eBay brings are universal.

ON ACQUISITIONS: Acquiring Baazee.com in India, for example, was a perfect fit with our own marketplace business and it’s been a great success. As the Internet evolves, new opportunities present themselves. With Skype, we saw a way to bring a new dimension, online voice communications, to online commerce. We believe the combination of eBay, Skype and our payment service PayPal will enable us to create an unparalleled e-commerce and communications engine for buyers and sellers around the world.