Ebay and PayPal complement their individual growth.

Internet auction site and the online payment service have seen huge growth, mainly because of their respective apps but surprisingly also because of the development of PayPal.

In the first three months of this year, the net income for eBay was up by 20%. This then resulted in revenue of $2.55bn.

EBay is coming to the conclusion of its three year business plan to achieve more and develop the business.

PayPal have also started the year strongly, partly because of the developments with eBay have boosted the number of transactions that PayPal have completed on their behalf.  The number of PayPal registered accounts also grew by 16%, which excludes their eBay motors division.

The online market place, according to PayPal has grown by 8%. Smartphone’s, Apps and better internet access are also influencing this growth.

App success leads to a Mobile Transactional site…

Budget Hotel chain Premier Inn are putting together a mobile website that will show room vacancies, a booking area and an order confirmation screen following the great success that its app had in generating room bookings.

The Hotel Chain has stated that the app developed a million pounds in bookings. The app was launched in January and has been very successful.  This has then generated the interest in a mobile friendly website that will include an order confirmation page to book the room. The website will be very similar to the app that was launched on the iPhone, android and Nokia handsets.

The App was produced because Premier Inn mobile users found the traditional website very tricky to navigate on the handset. This was preventing bookings.  The app was downloaded 250,000 times, it was also linked into the GPS systems on many handsets so that it would show the nearest hotel at any given time.

Research shows that the app really helped the business audience when booking a room last minute. However, most bookings were done via the iPhone approximately 3 months in advance.  The developer of the app is also been included onto the development team for the new mobile site. Key areas will be to keep the iPhone users business coming in and also make sure that the user experience is perfect for Blackberry’s, Androids and Nokia’s.

Spending using mobiles hits £581m

The Smartphone, Apps and the increased availability to the internet via 3G and Wi-Fi have contributed to a £581m mobile spend. Purchasing Groceries is the main contributor towards the total figure, with travel tickets and clothing in a close second and third.

The main reason for this increasing spend via mobiles from the research is purely because of convenience, 78% of the sample stated that they like shopping on the move either during their commute to work or on the high street itself.

This spend is set to increase again in the near future because of the interest in tablet computers and net book sales. These devises are not considered as mainstream internet devices but they will be in 2012, and boosting mobile spends.

Going into the numbers more specifically, the results show that £908 is spent online on groceries per year. Travel tickets are at £675 and Clothes at £565. You may expect travel tickets be in the top three but perhaps not clothing and groceries.

Tesco is the dominate supermarket reaping the rewards from the mobile users requiring their groceries. Tesco has an app for the iPhone, Android, Nokia, and Windows Phone7. This app is a transactional app that Asda, Morrison’s and Sainsbury’s don’t have.

This then highlights that fact that the online and the mobile audience are making further steps into the mobile market, and importantly using their Smartphone’s and mobile devices for more every day activities.

Not having an App that includes a checkout facility will be vital as we discover new online habits.

The Smartphone – what can we expect in 2011?

If you have a Smartphone, ask yourselves this question – would things in your world be the same without the apps, email, MMS, and the internet on the move?

Smartphone’s are expected to be more popular than ever in 2011 and take a bit more market share. According to the International Data Corporation that tracks technology and its sales, they believe that 450 million Smartphone’s will be shipped in 2011. That is a big leap compared to the 303 million on 2010. This increased distribution then puts the Smartphone on course for a 50% growth assuming that they are all bought.

This is an intense market, including Google, Apple, Sony Ericson and Microsoft pushing their handsets into the market and trying to out promote each other during their new product announcements. It is that intense that Apple has sued HTC (that made the Google Phone) and Nokia have sued Apple, twice! One being because Apple copied their patents on their OS software.

Recently in the news – there has been more chatter about establishing more Wi-Fi points and the national replacement of copper wire for fibre optic cable, providing a more complete and quicker internet service. These changes just add more reasons to buy a Smartphone.

Within one battle there are several more. If the Smartphone market does use and need the 450 million units, which OS platform will you choose? Perhaps the Apple OS is what you prefer, Google Android or Windows OS. So there is a battle for OS software as well as manufacturers of the handsets.

There is also the possibility of partnerships to gain an advantage in the marketing place – such as Microsoft and Nokia. The first Nokia devices running Windows OS, not the Symbian, are due to appear in 2012.

If you don’t have a Smartphone – you will be missing a lot!

Facebook turns its attention to mid-range mobile phone apps

Facebook just refuse to take 5 minutes to breathe.  Having conquered the Smartphone app market, they have now launched a mobile app that caters for the mid-range ‘feature’ phones.

The app is intended to enhance navigation and contact synchronisation for over 2,500 handsets on brands such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson and LG.

Facebook teamed up with mobile development firm Snaptu and 14 mobile operators.  An added bonus for phone users is that the operators have agreed to drop data charges for using the app.

Operators involved in launching the app include Three’s Hong Kong division, Vodafone’s Romanian unit and STC in Saudi Arabia.

Facebook’s programme manager, Mark Heynen, wrote on the company’s blog page: “Smartphones have offered better features for sharing with friends but aren’t used by most people around the world. Today, we’re launching a mobile app to bring Facebook to the most popular mobile phones around the world.”

The new mobile app follows the launch of the 0.facebook.com mobile site launched in May 2010, which targeted emerging markets where access to the internet via PC is rare.