Mobile Payment Magazine

Mobile Payment Strategies Report: Opportunities & Markets 2011-2015

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Mobile Payment ReportA new study from Juniper Research has determined that the total value of mobile payments for digital and physical goods, money transfers and NFC (Near Field Communications) transactions will reach $670bn by 2015, up from $240bn this year. These forecasts represent the gross merchandise value of all purchases or the value of money being transferred.

The new Mobile Payment Strategies report revealed that all segments will exhibit 2x to 3x growth over the next five years. This growth will be driven by the rapid adoption of mobile ticketing, NFC contactless payments, physical goods purchases and money transfers as people in both developed and developing countries use their devices for everyday transactions. [Read more…]

Mobile Industry Predictions Report: 2012

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The Yankee Group has just released its free 17-page 2012 Annual Predictions Report, which looks into what the future has in store for the ever-growing mobility landscape.

Overview:

The world is in transition and in the year ahead, mobile will be both the protagonist and the subject of this instability. During the last five years, networks and the information they carry have plugged more than 2 billion new participants into the mobile economy. The winners in this landscape will be those players that can scale quickly and treat each user as a unique customer.

Report Highlights:

  • The mobile gold rush is global in scale a and touches all customers. In the last five years, 2 billion new users joined the mobile revolution. Looking ahead, mobile workers and consumers will embrace tablets, mobile content and personal cloud services. At the infrastructure level, the operator imperative to monetize all-IP networks will drive investment in policy solutions.
  • Asia-Pacific takes the lead in tablet sales. Yankee Group forecasts U.S. tablet sales will total 17 million in 2011 and almost 25 million in 2012. Similarly, tablet sales in all of Europe will exceed 15 million in 2011 and reach more than 26 million in 2012. And tablet sales in the Asia-Pacific region will total 20 million this year and reach almost 39 million in 2012, more than 50 percent above the U.S.
  • Diameter signaling is taking off. Yankee Group has seen significant request for proposal/request for information (RFP/RFI) activity and expects spending on IP-based Diameter signaling to more than double between 2011 and 2012—growing from U.S.$22 million to U.S.$45 million. And overall, we see the market mushrooming to U.S.$212 million in 2015, for a whopping CAGR of 57.2 percent.
  • Personal cloud services are hitting the high-growth phase. We forecast 17 percent of professionals with three or more devices will adopt a personal cloud service for online storage, backup and synching.
  • Economic woes threaten operators. Western European operators will see churn increase from approximately 2.3 percent per month today to 2.4 percent by the end of 2012, despite operators’ ongoing efforts to migrate customers to postpaid services and long-term contracts linked to new smartphone purchases. The world is in transition and in the year ahead, mobile will be both the protagonist and the subject of this instability. During the last five years, networks and the information they carry have plugged more than 2 billion new participants into the mobile economy. The winners in this landscape will be those players that can scale quickly and treat each user as a unique customer.

For more information and to download the report: 2012 Annual Predictions Report: Mobile

Near Field Communication (NFC)

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Near field communication or NFC, is a short-range high frequency wireless communication technology which enables the exchange of data between devices over about a 10 centimeters (3.9 in) distance.

The technology is a simple extension of the ISO/IEC 14443 proximity-card standard (proximity card, RFID) that combines the interface of a smartcard and a reader into a single device. An NFC device can communicate with both existing ISO/IEC 14443 smartcards and readers, as well as with other NFC devices, and is thereby compatible with existing contactless infrastructure already in use for public transportation and payment. NFC is primarily aimed at usage in mobile phones.

Near Field Communication (NFC) is used mostly in paying for purchases made in physical stores or transportation services. A consumer using a special mobile phone equipped with a smartcard waves his/her phone near a reader module. Most transactions do not require authentication, but some require authentication using PIN, before transaction is completed. The payment could be deducted from pre-paid account or charged to mobile or bank account directly.

Mobile payment method via NFC faces significant challenges for wide and fast adoption, while some phone manufacturers and banks are enthusiastic, due to lack of supporting infrastructure, complex ecosystem of stakeholders, and standards.

NFC vendors in Japan are closely related to mass-transit networks, like the Mobile Suica used on the JR East rail network. Osaifu-Keitai system, used for Mobile Suica and many others including Edy and nanaco, has become the de-facto standard method for mobile payments in Japan. Its core technology, Mobile FeliCa IC, is partially owned by Sony, NTT DoCoMo and JR East. Mobile FeliCa utilize Sony’s FeliCa technology, which itself is the de-facto standard for contactless smart cards in the country.

Other NFC vendors mostly in Europe use contactless payment over mobile phones to pay for on- and off-street parking in specially demarcated areas. Parking wardens may enforce the parkings by license plate, transponder tags or barcode stickers. First conceptualized in the 1990s, the technology has seen commercial use in this century in both Scandinavia and Estonia. End users benefit from the convenience of being able to pay for parking from the comfort of their car with their mobile phone, and parking operators are not obliged to invest in either existing or new street-based parking infrastructures. Parking wardens maintain order in these systems by license plate, transponder tags or barcode stickers or they read a digital display with their eyes in the same way as they read a pay and display receipt.

Source: Wikipedia (1), (2)