• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, July 7, 2011

eBay on Thursday announced its $240 million acquisition of mobile payments provider Zong as the online auction giant steps up its expansion into m-commerce. Zong became a popular payment option in the games and social media space by letting users enter their mobile phone numbers to pay for virtual goods purchases to their phone bills or credit cards. The company has relationships with 250 wireless operators worldwide.

eBay said Zong would complement and bolster its PayPal service in the fast-growing mobile payments and digital goods area. PayPal, which recently crossed 100 million active accounts, has been used to date mostly for person-to-person payments online but is pushing increasingly into the mobile space. It expects to transact more than $3 billion in mobile payments in 2011. Earlier this year, it also launched a service focused on digital goods purchases.

Parent eBay has said it expects the $2 billion in mobile transactions the site had last year to double again in 2011.