This afternoon, eBay delivered its third quarter earnings report, and it’s a good bet that the company was eager to do so.  eBay beat analysts’ forecasts for the third quarter, gave better-than-expected guidance regarding the fourth quarter, and also discussed an interesting stock buyback program.

Let’s start with the third quarter results.  eBay managed to report earnings per share of $0.40, which is a significant improvement compared to the $0.37 analysts predicted.  It also earned $2.25 billion in revenue rather than the expected $2.18 billion.

Those victories came in part due to the success of PayPal and the Merchant Services program.  Apparently over a million new PayPal accounts were created every month during the third quarter, and Merchant Services net total payment volume grew about 40 percent on a year-over-year basis.

As for the future, eBay thinks it can earn $0.45 to $0.48 per share next quarter instead of just $0.44.  And $2.39 billion to $2.49 billion in revenue is supposed to be doable, which covers the possibility of $2.41 billion.

Finally, with regards to buying back stock, eBay stated, "The company repurchased approximately $300 million of its common stock in the third quarter.  In addition, the company’s board of directors authorized an additional $2.0 billion stock repurchase program for the purpose of offsetting dilution from the company’s equity compensation programs."

eBay’s stock is now up 7.17 percent in after-hours trading due to all this excitement.