The gross value of global mobile payment transactions will reach $945 billion in 2015, about a 30-fold increase from the comparable figure of $31.5 billion for 2010, according to IE Market Research (IEMR). The surge underscores IEMR’s expectation that mobile payments are positioned to become mainstream between 2012 and 2014. IE Market Research, a Canadian-based provider of market intelligence services, recently released its Q3 2011 report entitled “Global Mobile Payment Market Forecast 2011- 2015.”

“M-commerce and mobile contactless transactions, driven by their allure of convenience, are poised to promote ‘less-cash’ societies all over the world,” said Nizar Assanie, Vice President (Research) at IEMR. “Our usage surveys reflect a trend of mobile payments growing commonplace in the Western world, corroborated by the fact North American and Western European markets are geared up for the beginning stages of a full-fledged adoption of the digital wallet.”

IEMR’s Global Mobile Payment Market Forecast covers annual forecasts of mobile payment users, transactions by technology (NFC, SMS, WAP, USSD), and by type of purchase (merchandise, digital products, ticketing, mobile money transfers, bill payments, and pre-paid top-ups). The report is based on IEMR’s Global Consumer Telecommunications Survey of 50,000 mobile users in 50 markets worldwide. It is the most extensive country-specific forecast of its kind.

IEMR’s latest report illustrates a declining trend in SMS transactions relative to the growing adoption of NFC technology in developed markets, particularly Western Europe and North America. NFC offers the potential “sweet spot” of access to millions of retail point-of-sale terminals, a transaction technology that SMS falls short of.

The report also found that mobile payments are promising in emerging markets because of the dearth of wired infrastructure, which makes purchase transactions with a mobile device convenient.

According to IEMR, there were 1.5 billion NFC transactions globally in 2010. It forecast the comparable figure to jump to 55.3 billion in 2015, a compound annual growth rate of 105.2%.

Source: Business Wire