eBay Q4 falls flat, stock dives 10 percent

eBay Inc. reported flat fourth quarter earnings and revenue after the bell Wednesday.

The San Jose, Calif.-headquartered corporation reported a net income of $477 million, or 39 cents per share (statement).

Non-GAAP earnings were 50 cents per share with revenue at $2.3 billion.

Wall Street was looking for earnings of 50 cents per share on revenue of $2.32 billion.

eBay's gross merchandise volume also remained basically unchanged at $21.9 billion.

On the plus side, the company's total active buyer base ticked up by 5 percent to 162 million.

But eBay says it now expects Q1 revenue to be between $2.05 billion and $2.1 billion, with adjusted EPS between 43 cents and 45 cents. Wall Street was anticipating 48 cents per share on revenue of $2.16 billion.

As a result, eBay's shares plunged nearly 10 percent in after hours trading.

"The quarter also marked the end of an extraordinary year during which we completed the spin-off of PayPal," said eBay president and CEO Devin Wenig, in prepared remarks. "We continue to grow our business and customer base while executing our plan to reposition eBay for long-term success."

For eBay, it all comes down to whether the company can come up with a solid plan to jump start growth. Despite its current struggles, the company does have several factors working in its favor. For one, eBay is now a legacy player in the e-commerce space, which happens to be one of the most promising sectors around. What's more, e-commerce is still ripe for expansion for the foreseeable future, giving eBay a plenty of opportunity to implement a successful growth strategy or turnaround plan.

On the down side, eBay lags way behind Amazon in terms of both size and growth. Amazon is expected to make $107.3 billion in revenue during the full fiscal 2015. eBay, however, brought in just $8.6 billion in revenue during the same period.