eBay is out with its latest earnings report, and with it, some intriguing numbers about just how big of a role mobile commerce is starting to play in its business.
Overall, eBay’s revenue for 2010 hit $9.1 billion, $5.7 billion of which came from eBay’s marketplace business (from $53 billion worth of goods sold) and $3.4 billion of which came from PayPal transaction fees (from $91 billion worth of transactions).

eBay says that “nearly $2 billion” of the $53 billion in merchandise transactions took place via mobile, where its app not only lets you buy and sell items on eBay, but more recently (through eBay’s acquisition of RedLaser) allows you to bar code scan a physical item and then see how much it would cost you on eBay (and hence, bypass buying it in the retail store if you can get a better price on eBay).
PayPal has also seen significant mobile innovation in the past year, including the ability to bump phones to transfer money, deposit checks by taking a picture of it on your smartphone, and pay for items using PayPal in third-party mobile apps and sites. In turn, eBay says that “mobile payment volume [for PayPal] increased five times compared to 2009,” though the company isn’t divulging the total revenue number.
Given other recent developments in mobile commerce, we’re not surprised by the surge eBay is experiencing. Earlier this year, Amazon reported that it’s now seeing more than $1 billion per year of products ordered via mobile. And just yesterday, Starbucks started allowing customers to pay in retail stores via mobile at its stores across the U.S.
The combination of increasing smartphone penetration, faster mobile broadband speeds and rising consumer comfort with mobile payments (where we think the Starbucks initiative will be a major driver) make the continued expansion of the trend almost inevitable.