Aside from the PayPal plan, he said the company could not disclose details on specific projects. Industry sources have said that Whitman is concerned about the company's declining position relative to Chinese rival Taobao.com.
eBay, which had first-mover advantage in China's online auction market, had initially intended to launch its PayPal site in the first quarter of this year.
The lack of a means to make secure online payments has been one of the main hurdles for on-line businesses in China and eBay has been losing market since Taobao launched its AliPay system in October 2003.
An official with Taobao.com said that the company overtook eBay in terms of China market share in the first quarter. As of Feb 24, 79 pct of listings on Taobao.com accepted online payments while only 21 pct of listings on eBay's Eachnet service did so, according to data provided by Taobao.com.
There were 12 mln usd worth of transactions through AliPay in March, with 720,000 transactions handled by AliPay in May. In 2004, AliPay transaction volumes increased an average of 64 pct each month, the company said.
"Transaction volumes on AliPay increased 123 pct between Q4 2004 and Q1 2005, largely due to our increased marketing efforts," the Taobao official said.
The AliPay service, which was initially solely for use with Taobao.com, was in May made available to all merchants in China. PayPal has long been available for use by merchants in the US and other overseas markets.
Both Whitman and Alibaba.com chief executive Jack Ma have made bold predictions about the China market.
In a recent interview with XFN-Asia Ma said he believed Taobao.com would capture 70 pct of the market and eBay would get 20 or 30 pct. Taobao.com is an Alibaba.com subsidiary.
Whitman last month said that eBay wants to turn China into its biggest market within a decade.
Industry experts have forecast the volume of China on-line auction transactions to surge 75 pct to 3.37 bln yuan this year from last year and to reach 8.06 bln yuan by 2006.
(1 usd = 8.3 yuan)
cm/wk
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