A recent report released by Gartner points to significant growth in the number of mobile payments in 2010.
The report, titled “Market Insight: The Outlook on Mobile Payment,” forecasts 108.6 million worldwide mobile payment users in 2010, up 54.5 percent from 2009, when there were 70.2 million mobile payment users. This would mean mobile payment users would account for 2.1 percent of all mobile users this year.
“We continue to see strong growth in developing markets in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa for mobile payment, while adoption in North America and Western Europe lags behind due to the plentiful choices of payment instruments that consumers have,” said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. “Developing markets have found the right formula for mobile money services – functions that users want and an ecosystem that can sustain the service.”
Shen discussed the need for a different approach in developed markets. “Instead of a point offering for mobile payment, the service needs to be built on top of the existing payment behavior and infrastructure so that users can choose any channel — retail, phone, online or mobile — that suits their context at the moment of payment.”
Asia/Pacific is expected to lead the way with 62.8 million mobile payment users in 2010, up approximately 49.9 percent from 41.9 million users in 2009. This segment will represent 2.6 percent of all mobile users.
Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) will follow with 27.1 million mobile payment users, up 61.3 percent from 16.8 million last year.
Latin America will be third with 8.0 million users, up 56.9 percent from 5.1 million users in 2009.
Western Europe will have 7.1 million mobile payment users this year, up 57.8 percent from 2009.
North America brings up the rear with an expected 3.5 million users in 2010, an 84.2 percent increase from 1.9 million last year, according to Gartner.
Shen points out that mobile payments in developing markets are being driven by the unbanked and underbanked populations that don’t have easy access to the banking infrastructure or a PC. This makes mobile payments a natural choice of access.
At the same time, these markets are policing this arena to make sure that unlawful financial activities are dealt with.
The report highlights that SMS remains the dominant mobile payment technology, thanks to its “ubiquity and ease of use” in both developing and developed markets.
A Juniper Research report forecasts the value of physical and digital goods purchased via mobile devices to reach $200 billion by 2010, and nearly $100 billion in 2010. This growth will be driven by the security and ease-of-use offered by this medium.
Sources:</strong
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