EBay shoppers used cell phones to make more purchases this holiday season than in past years. And it was not just to buy the hot toy du jour, Zhu Zhu Pets.

The online marketplace operator said Monday that people used cell phones to buy 1.5 million products in the past several weeks _ three times the number for the same period last year, which ran from the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve.

EBay said holiday mobile purchases include a 1966 Chevrolet Corvette that sold for $75,000 and a 23-foot boat that sold for $19,108. Other items bought through mobile applications included watches, cell phones and video games.

Counting both mobile and traditional online purchases, eBay users bought more than 500,000 Zhu Zhu Pets robotic hamsters.

EBay, which is based in San Jose, Calif., said nearly 6 million people have eBay's applications on iPhones and people use mobile apps to visit its site more than 2 million times each day. EBay released its mobile Web site in 2007 and its iPhone application in 2008.

For the full year, eBay users completed more than $500 million worth of transactions on cell phones.