“OMG! I just bought a yacht on my iPhone. LOL.” Mobile commerce, or M-Commerce for the cool kids, is on the rise. Whether it’s downloading the latest ring tone, or spontaneously purchasing a $600 pair of Christian Louboutin camel coloured patent leather pumps on your Blackberry (yes ladies, it’s possible), mobile transactions are fast becoming commonplace around the globe. Furthermore, with the development of sophisticated mobile apps for smartphones, mobile payment is becoming more convenient and the cellular shopping experience more user-friendly. Essentially, the phone in your pocket is now your virtual wallet. Take eBay for example, nearly 6 million people have eBay on their iPhone and shoppers are making 750,000 unique visits a day to eBay via mobile apps. As retailers like eBay adopt M-commerce models, and banks like Standard Bank’s Mimoney adopt virtual currencies, the mobile payment experience is becoming seamlessly integrated in the marketing of products and services. Here are the stats:

From Fierce Wireless - Mobile consumer spending on eBay (January 2010)

• In 2009, eBay buyers and sellers are generating more than half a billion dollars of transactions via mobile, with strong momentum in the 2009/2010 holiday season
• Mobile purchases this season range from designer handbags to a $75,000 1966 Chevrolet Corvette
• In 2009, an item was sold every 2 seconds via eBay mobile applications worldwide. Items sold include $19,108 for a 23-foot deck boat, $10,025 for 250 grams of pure gold bullion and $10,000 for a Boston grand piano made by Steinway
• Nearly six million people are carrying eBay around in their pocket
• Users from more than 165 countries visited the eBay mobile website and iPhone application
• 1.5 million items were bought on eBay using mobile phones worldwide this holiday
• According to an IDC report earlier this year, mobile Internet users will double in number by 2013 to surpass one billion

Ebay’s iPhone Business Apps Integrated Pay with PayPal. Image Credit: AMJ- Gadgets

From Global Digital Economy - E-Commerce and M-Commerce Trends and Statistics (October 2009)

• Spending on online advertising also continues to grow in the face of economic uncertainty and in 2010 online advertising should account for around 13% of overall ad spending worldwide
• Around 20% of Facebook’s online users now access the service via mobile each month. Its online customer base sits at around 300 million and Facebook is expanding into e-payments/m-payments via partnerships with Zong and Boku
• 9 million US mobile subscribers say they have used their mobile phone to pay for goods or services, and half of all data users (49%) say they expect to participate in mobile commerce in the future
• Men are more likely than women to use their phone for commerce: 4.5 percent (4.9 million) of men and 3.0 percent (4.3 million) of women say they have made a purchase using their phone
• Adults ages 25-34 are the most likely to have made a purchase using their phone: 5.4 percent (3 million) of adults ages 25-34 have made a purchase, compared to 3.6 percent of all mobile subscribers

From E-Commerce Times - Teaching Mature Markets New M-Commerce Tricks  (December 2009)

• 7 percent of all mobile subscribers had engaged in any sort of M-commerce within the past 30 days in the second quarter of 2009, according to Nielsen Mobile. Of these, 25 percent made a purchase through their smartphones
• Residents in rural parts of the Philippines and other developing nations routinely pay bills through their smartphones, while people in Japan and Europe can buy products as well as train and airline tickets using their mobile phones
• Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) and PayPal both just recently opened up their payment platforms to let application developers create mobile commerce apps
• GS1, a not-for-profit global organisation whose members consist of the world's largest firms, including Kraft (NYSE: KFT), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), has begun attempting to define open standards to let businesses and consumers better interact using mobile phones

Also check out:

• Friday Fact Box - Mobile Advertising
• Getting Mobile Right - Some Examples
• Friday Fact Box - Mobile Use