SAN FRANCISCO – EBay Inc. reported Wednesday that second-quarter profit surged 50 percent, easily beating Wall Street expectations thanks to strong sales on online auctions, the automobile classified section and e-commerce sites such as shopping.com.

But analysts remained concerned about the declining number of items for sale on the site. EBay shares fell 26 cents in extended trading after losing 20 cents to $34.05 in Wednesday’s regular trading session.

The San Jose-based company earned $375.8 million, or 27 cents per share, compared with $249.9 million, or 17 cents per share, in the second quarter of 2006.

Revenue for the period ended June 30 was $1.83 billion, up 30 percent from $1.41 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Not including $79.6 million in stock-based compensation expenses and other one-time charges, eBay earned $471.1 million, or 34 cents per share, up 34 percent from a year ago.

On that basis, which does not comply with generally accepted accounting principles, analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected eBay to earn $447.18 million, or 32 cents per share, on revenue of $1.78 billion.

“We were very pleased across the board _ from the core eBay business to merchant services at PayPal, which was a standout performer,” eBay President and Chief Executive Meg Whitman told The Associated Press.

Revenue from the electronic payment service PayPal was $432.3 million, up 31 percent from a year ago.

The Skype division, which allows customers to place long-distance calls over their computers, reported revenue of $89.13 million, up 102 percent from a year ago. It’s the second consecutive quarter of profitability for Skype, which eBay purchased in October 2005 for about $2.1 billion.

Ebay, which ended last quarter with $3.4 billion cash, took in $1.24 billion in sales from ebay.com, shopping.com, ticket vendor StubHub.com and other e-commerce sites _ up 24 percent from a year ago. Of that, 52 percent came from outside the United States.

Despite rosy financial performance, the company hasn’t been able to maintain the number of listings on its e-commerce sites. Instead, it’s wringing more money out of a shrinking number of listings.

Individual listings dropped 2 percent from a year ago, and eBay store listings plunged 25 percent from a year ago. Individuals and “power sellers” who operate eBay stores listed 559.1 million items worth $14.46 billion in the quarter.

Executives said in a conference call that revenue would continue to outstrip growth in listings. That trend troubles some analysts, including Rick Munarriz, who researches technology companies for The Motley Fool.

“One concern in the back of my mind is that the company is milking more out of each transaction. There comes a point where the end user isn’t going to like being nickeled and dimed, so this could backfire,” Munarriz said. “It’s not a perfect report card, but for now they’re making it work.”

The 14,000-employee company purchased approximately 10 million shares of common stock for $344 million last quarter _ part of an aggressive program to buy back up to $2 billion in stock by January 2009.

Executives raised their forecast for the rest of the year. Excluding certain charges, eBay expects 2007 profit of $1.34 to $1.38 per share on sales of $7.3 billion to $7.45 billion.

In the current quarter, the company expects profit of 31 to 33 cents per share, excluding certain charges, on revenue of $1.775 billion to $1.825 billion.

On the Net:

eBay: http://www.ebay.com

A service of the Associated Press(AP)