eBay's festive sales soar, but what's this? Profit DOWN 62%?

eBay not only made a wad of dosh over the festive period but it also scooped up loads more mobe-toting shoppers to boot.

The online tat bazaar today boasted that 4,300,000 people signed up for new accounts using their smartphones during 2012. The website's CEO John Donahoe said these mobile shoppers are driving his firm's revenue growth.

A tidy $13bn went through the internet marketplace last year, and its payment processing subsidiary PayPal handled nearly $14bn in mobile payments - that's more than three times the amount it juggled the year before.

"Mobile continues to rewrite the commerce playbook, and we continue to be a mobile commerce and payments leader," Donahoe said. "In 2013, we expect each to exceed $20bn."

The total revenue for last year's holiday quarter just beat analysts' estimates, up 18 per cent year on year to $3.99bn. However, profit fell compared to Q4 2011, which was a time when eBay had extra cash sloshing around its coffers from its sale of Skype: earnings in Q4 2012 were down 62 per cent to $757m.

Despite the revenue jump over Christmas, eBay will not adjust its previous forecasts for 2013 and expects profit margins at PayPal to remain flat on last year. ®