Company News: EBay quietly launches site for classifieds

EBay Inc. has launched a free classified advertising site in the United States, an experiment the online auction company says could lead to new sources of revenue.

Since February 2005, San Jose, Calif.-based eBay has been operating an international classified forum called Kijiji, which means “village” in Swahili. The site allows users in more than two dozen countries to buy and sell goods and services that are difficult or impossible to ship or sell on eBay, such as baby-sitting services in Montreal or a leather recliner in Beijing.

EBay’s U.S. classified site, which launched last Friday, covers 220 cities in 50 states, including Spokane.

Topics include “apartments for rent,” “lost and found,” “pet adoption” and “garage sales.” It also includes personals sites such as “missing you,” “just friends” and “activity partners.”

In the U.S., the free online classified market is dominated by San Francisco-based Craigslist.org, which lists ads in more than 450 cities worldwide and gets more than 7 billion page views per month.

EBay’s new site could present another threat to newspaper publishers, who are already worried about the rapid growth of Craigslist since it threatens their highly profitable classified advertising business.

In August 2004, eBay purchased a 25 percent stake in Craigslist so it could learn about the online classified business, which e-commerce rivals Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. have invested heavily.

“Boeing Co. said Thursday it delivered 114 commercial airplanes in the second quarter, its highest total since 2001.

The deliveries ran the aerospace company’s total through the first half of the year to 220, leaving it on target to reach its full-year estimate of 440 to 445.

Boeing’s deliveries for the quarter included 86 737s, 21 777s, four 747s and three 767s.

The last time it had a higher total was the fourth quarter of 2001 when it delivered 144 commercial jets.

The world’s No. 2 maker of commercial planes behind Airbus is on pace to overtake its European competitor in deliveries by early next year, helped by the momentum generated by the 787 Dreamliner.

“Shares of India’s top real estate company, DLF Ltd., made a strong debut Thursday, rising nearly 9 percent in the country’s biggest-ever initial public offering.

Last month, DLF raised about $2.25 billion by selling 175 million new shares to the public.

Trading in the shares began Thursday on the Bombay Stock Exchange at a 11 percent premium to the issue price.