SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — EBay Inc. reported yesterday that first-quarter profit surged 52 percent, trouncing Wall Street expectations thanks to big-spending shoppers overseas and scorching performance of its PayPal electronic transaction division.Despite lacklustre growth in the total number of listings on the world’s largest online auction, eBay earned $377.2 million, or 27 cents per share, for the three months ended March 31. It earned $248.3 million, or 17 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

First-quarter revenue totalled $1.77 billion, up 27 percent from $1.39 billion a year ago.

“It was a very strong quarter across the board,” eBay president and chief executive Meg Whitman told The Associated Press. She added that the company, which spent $333 million last quarter in a stock buyback programme, would repurchase up to $2 billion in additional shares through January 2009.

EBay’s most lucrative division is PayPal, which last quarter generated revenue of $439 million, up 31 percent from the year-ago quarter. The online payment service, which competes against Google Inc.’s Checkout service, had 143 million accounts in March — up 36 percent from a year ago.

PayPal customers made $11.36 billion (euro8.37 billion) in transactions last quarter, up 30 percent from the year-ago quarter. The division is essentially an online bank that allows payments on eBay and thousands of other sites and between individuals.

During the quarter, 82.9 million active eBay users exchanged $14.28 billion in goods, ranging from pricey real estate and cars to cell phones and shoes.

EBay posted revenue of $884.9 million (euro651.76 million) in the United States last quarter, up only 18 percent from the year-ago quarter. But the company took in $883.2 million (euro650.51 million) abroad, up 38 percent from the first quarter of 2006. International sales now account for about half of total revenue.

The company is particularly focused on cracking potentially lucrative Asian markets. In December, eBay entered a joint venture with Beijing-based wireless Internet company TOM Online Inc. Whitman said yesterday that the companies will launch a new site early this summer, and it will be operated entirely by Chinese workers and stored on servers in China.

Users posted 588 million listings in the quarter, up only 2 percent from the 575 million listings in the year-ago period — a far smaller growth rate than eBay typically records.

Whitman said Wednesday she was disappointed with the tepid listings growth. She said it was the result of an ambitious effort to reduce the amount of overpriced commodity items that have increasingly clogged up the site — such as thousands of cell phone chargers, outdated MP3 players and other electronic devices, often with high starting bids and reserve prices.

“I think we made a couple mistakes in the middle of last year. ... We frankly had too many items on the site,” Whitman said.

The company has been tweaking seller fees to encourage smaller starting bids, and representatives have been calling individual sellers reminding them to abide by fair-use policies. EBay is taking a more active role in combating the growing incidence of fraud, identity theft and privacy invasions.

Because of the clampdown, Whitman said, the percentage of users who buy items is increasing.

“Conversion rates are going back up, so sellers are seeing more success — and if history is any guide, supply follows demand,” she said. “We always anticipated a lag in listings growth. We are not unduly concerned.”

The slow growth in listings did not worry Rick Munarriz, a senior analyst in media, technology and the internet for The Motley Fool. He said it was a logical consequence of eBay’s attempts to purge the site of shoddy sellers.

“Last year, they were a trailer park, and this year they want to be a luxury condo,” Munarriz said. “The current users are being milked more, but they keep coming back, so the formula is working.”