eBay’s iPhone app, which was launched earlier this year, has been downloaded 11 million times, says the company, making it the number one mobile retailer in the US. The figure was revealed during the announcement of the company’s Q2 earnings, which logged higher than expected profits of $530million on revenues of $2.2billion. The figures come just weeks after the company said that it expects to make $1.5billion from mobile in 2010.
eBay currently has a suite of 14 apps – though it hasn’t revealed download figures for the other 13 – and the company’s VP of mobile, Steve Yankovich, says the company is “intending to release a new app every five weeks”.
“We pick and choose what will move the needle, and then we do it fast, he says. ”Picking the right platform also has a huge effect on the bottom line: users of the iPad typically spend three or four times more in a shopping spree than iPhone users.”
Perhaps most interestingly for sellers, mobile use might be the saviour of auctions: last year when eBay released a mobile app alerting bidders on the state of auctions they were watching or bidding on, “sales shot up.” Yankovich says, “it was instant money.”
