Ebay’s Paypal hit $4 billion in mobile payments in 2011, surpassing the company’s original predictions of $1.5 billion, and a significant increase from the $750 million in mobile payments the company processed in 2010. Just to put the company’s trajectory into perspective, Paypal had processed a mere $141 million in mobile payments in 2009.
What’s more, the company predicts it will reach $7 billion this year, according to a recent blog post by the company’s VP David Marcus.
“Fueling this growth is a combination of the success of our mobile-optimized checkout flows, and the rapid increase in consumer adoption of mobile shopping,” Marcus said. “We currently have more than 17 million PayPal customers regularly making a purchase through their mobile phone, up from the eight million we reported in June. And tablets continue to play a major role in that adoption.”
Marcus pointed out that 75 percent of shoppers in the 2011 holiday season made purchases on tablets, citing recent IBM benchmark data.
“The worlds of offline and online are already blurring, giving consumers a new ‘normal’ for retail,” Marcus said. “That new normal includes an unparalleled level of convenience. Regardless of whether a consumer is behind a desktop computer, on a mobile device, or in a physical store, shopping experiences can happen anytime, anywhere, and in any way.”
The company has also experimented with in-store payment capabilities at Home Depot, allowing customers to pay for purchases using a Paypal account through a pin code or special Paypal card. It has also collaborated with companies such as Starbucks, Pizza Express, Yorder or Fandango to enable mobile phone payments scanned at the register or even paying from the phone to avoid the checkout line.