eBay’s profits were up over Christmas.

The online auction giant released its trading figures for the fourth quarter of 2009.

It made a net profit of 1.6 bn, which is about £835 million, in the three months to the end of December.

A year earlier, the website recorded a net profit of $365million in the same period.

The $1.4 billion sale of Skype lifted the profits but even excluding this sale results were still ahead of expectations with revenues up 16% from a year earlier.

The company also says the growth of Paypal has helped business.