In 1997, eBay got venture funding and officially changes its company name to eBay. It's defining moment came on June 10, 1999, when a 22-hour crash turned an otherwise worst moment for the company into an incident that won millions of user's deeper trust for the company. During the 22-hour crash that day, upon management directive some 400 employees of eBay went out of their way to call sellers to apologize for the temporary glitch. Ebay's unanticipated action won a lot of admiration from eBay users around the world.
1999 saw the start of eBay's acquisition of other online companies. It went on the purchase auction sites and companies such as Half.com, Mercado Libre, Lakau, iBazar, CARad.com, EachNet, Baazee.com, Internet Auction Co., Marktplaats.nl, Rent.com, Gumtree, Loquo, Shopping.com, Opus Forum, Meetup, and Tradera.com.
But among its more significant acquisitions are the 2002 $1.5 billion Paypal buy-out, and the VoIP company Skype for $2.6 billion in stock and cash in 2005.
Today, there are 135 million eBay users around the world. As of December 2005, eBay Inc.'s revenues has risen 39% at $4.55 billion, and net income also at 39% of $1.05 billion. The bulk of the increase in income is attributed to higher sales in the US and other international markets.