Citi Takeaways from eBay at Rally in the Valley Tour

Citi is providing a few takeaways from Rally in the Valley tour. “Public companies included eBay Inc. EBAY and Shutterfly SFLY,” Citi writes. “Private companies covered both the ecommerce and social networking sectors. Meetings also involved several of the leading Internet-focused Venture Capital firms. Our most direct takeaways came from our meeting with eBay management, but our trip also elicited broad thematic points. “Among Our Thematic Takeaways – 1) Widespread industry appreciation of still very significant secular growth opportunities in the Internet sector, especially with the increasing materiality of SoMoLo (Social, Mobile & Local) drivers; 2) significant focus on Cloud Computing revenue and cost-management opportunities, especially with Amazon Web Services' very strong presence among private ‘Net companies; 3) very significant competition for engineering talent across the industry – talent demand levels perhaps not seen since the late 1990s; and 4) at the margin, more evidence of a platform shift away from a Web Search-centric Internet to a Social Network-centric sector.” eBay closed Wednesday at $30.82.