Shoppers have continued to embrace technology this holiday season, with eBay announcing that the number of items purchased via mobile phones increased threefold this sales period.
Around 1.5 million items were bought on eBay using mobile phones in the lead-up to Christmas, eBay said.
Shoppers are currently making 750,000 visits to eBay per day via mobile software - such as its iPhone app, which has been downloaded by 6 million iPhone users. Users from 165 countries visited the eBay mobile Web site or used the iPhone app.
“Mobile is changing the way people shop this holiday season,” eBay marketplaces president Lorrie Norrington said. “eBay buyers and sellers have rapidly embraced mobile commerce this year [but] this holiday season has been a mobile commerce tipping point.”
Meanwhile, Amazon announced that on Christmas day, the company sold more eBooks than paper books for the first time ever.
But Amazon, which produces and markets the successful Kindle eReader, has yet to release comparative sales figures for the day.
The Kindle itself became the most gifted item in Amazon history over the Christmas sales period, while the company expanded its eBook library to over 390,000 books.