By Luanne Teoh on 10-20-2011

Online payment giant, Paypal is expecting over $3.5 billion in transactions from mobile devices by the end of 2011. It also expects a significant jump in mobile payments during the upcoming holiday shopping season.

Earlier in the year, Paypal which is owned by eBay had predicted that it would see around $2 billion in mobile payments but a few months ago it revised its predictions to $3 billion. However, as recently as two weeks ago, eBay CEO John Donahoe upped the number again during a discussion on stage at the Web 2.0 Summit, saying he expects the total to now reach $3.5 billion by the end of the year.

Paypal’s parent company — eBay’s own mobile initiatives generated close to $2 billion in sales last year, nearly triple the $600 million eBay reported in 2009.

“Mobile is exploding. We are seeing a massive growth in mobile payment volume. We think the numbers for mobile payments are going to be huge for this holiday season” said Anuj Nayar director of communications for Paypal.

In fact, Paypal has embraced mobile shopping aggressively and plans to make transactions more seamless from start to end of the consumer shopping experience. In fact, by 2013, Paypal is expecting its mobile payments volume to reach $7.5 billion.

According to Scott Thompson, president of Paypal, “Paypal is re-imagining money and making it work better for merchants and consumers – whatever device you’re on, wherever you are in the world, and however you prefer to pay – whether that’s cash, credit, or installments. We’re rolling out a one-stop shop for merchants to engage their customers directly during every part of the shopping lifecycle –  generating demand from consumers through location-based offers, making payments accessible from any device (not just from the mobile phone), and offering more flexibility to customers even after they’ve checked out,” he said.

Juniper Research has determined that the total value of mobile payments for digital and physical goods, money transfers and NFC transactions will reach US$670 billion by 2015 and some 20 countries are expected to launch NFC services in the next 18 months, resulting in transactions approaching US$50 billion worldwide by 2014.

With the amazing numbers being reported and the positive outlook towards the mobile industry as a whole, it comes as no surprise that companies will be jumping on the bandwagon to get into the near-field communications (NFC) space. Google, Samsung, Visa, Apple and a host of other brands all have NFC capabilities in the works.

Image courtesy of techfreakz

About Luanne Teoh

Luanne is a senior correspondent for BizTechDay focused on Small Business Tech, Mobile and China based in San Francisco. In the last 17 years, she has helped launch start-ups and turned around failing operations. Her international work experience include both public and private corporations in Southeast Asia, Australia and North America. She has previously worked for Oracle Corporation, SonyBMG Music, Universal Music, Catcha Media and SOH Inc. Apart from a keen interest in technology, Luanne is also and avid explorer of the globe, cultures and people.

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