eBay and UK mobile operator 3 will team up
to offer Android smartphones users a preloaded auction
app.

eBay expects to generate $8bn from mobile
commerce retail volume in 2012 alone. In 2011, it generated almost
$5bn from auction sales via its app.

At the Mobile World Congress, eBay’s CEO
John Donahoe also announced PayPal’s Carrier Payment Network, which
is aimed to make m-payments and pave the way for a greater number
of online merchants.

Donahoe added that eBay had also got deals
with Yotel and the Spanish ticketing company Entradas.com, which
would allow customers to book hotel rooms and buy tickets using
PayPal and a mobile phone.

Donahoe said that mobile devices are
“blurring boundaries between e-commerce and retail and between
offline and online”.

However he reiterated his scepticism on
NFC technology based on the need for common standards:

“It will be years not months before you
will see NFC deployed in most large retailers. We need a
industry-wide standard.”