Mobile purchases – which were already becoming much more common – may soon really increase in frequency in the UK.  eBay and Telefonica have struck a two-year deal that will see eBay apps and/or links preloaded on most of the phones O2 sells in the region.

This move’s rather significant.  For starters, eBay’s already one of the first sites many people visit when shopping for something online, and with 22 million customers, O2 is the second-largest mobile telecommunications provider in the UK.

It’s not exactly like they do this sort of thing every day, either.  The two organizations are in fact calling this "the first mobile pre-load deal agreed by eBay anywhere in the world, and the first time Telefonica has selected an app to make available to its O2 smart and feature phone customers across the board."

So on to the details.  An official statement announced, "Starting later this year the eBay mobile app icon or a link to the eBay mobile site will appear on either the home page or two subsequent pages of most Android, Windows Phone 7, Symbian, RIM and bada devices sold by O2 in the UK over the next two years.  The company will work with device manufacturers to pre-install the application."

It should be interesting to see how this turns out.  The two-year timeframe of the deal indicates a fair amount of confidence on both sides, although five- and ten-year deals have occurred before.

No financial details relating to the partnership were disclosed, by the way.