EBay said that its second-quarter profit jumped 22%, as the online auction company enjoyed strong growth in its e-commerce sites and its PayPal payments service.

But eBay's outlook for the current quarter was softer than analysts had been forecasting, and the auction company's shares fell 6% in after-hours trading. The stock had gained 4.5% in regular trading to close at $28.10.

San Jose, Calif.-based eBay earned $460 million, compared with $376 million, or in the year-ago quarter.

EBay's revenue rose 20% to $2.20 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had been looking for $2.17 billion in revenue.

Revenue from eBay's marketplaces segment, which includes eBay, Shopping.com, StubHub and other e-commerce web sites, rose 13% to $1.46 billion.

Sharper growth came from PayPal, whose revenue rose 32% to $602 million. Revenue from its online telecommunications service, Skype, rose 51% to $130 million.

Listings on eBay's site climbed 19% to 667 million during the quarter, but the company's number of active users, an important measure of how well the company is attracting new buyers and sellers, rose only 1.4% to 84.5 million.

"This was a strong quarter and we are very pleased with the performance of the portfolio, particularly with the growth generated by PayPal," eBay CEO John Donahoe said in a statement.

Donahoe also said the company is "confident" in its moves to improve customer experiences as it manages "in an uncertain economic climate."

Source:AP News