China continues to show favor for mobile payments and similar services

Mobile payment services in China have seen strong growth in 2013. A new report from iResearch, an online tracking and data analysis firm, shows that independent mobile commerce platforms have found a great deal of support from Chinese consumers. People throughout the country are turning to these platforms in order to shop online and pay for products they are interested with their mobile device rather than with physical currency. As device ownership continues to grow, mobile commerce is expected to become much more prevalent throughout the country.

707% growth in mobile payments throughout 2013

According to the report from iResearch, some $200 billion in mobile payments was made throughout 2013. This represents a 707% year-over-year increase and the momentum that mobile commerce platforms have already been able to generate is expected to carry well into the future. Consumers claim to favor mobile commerce services because of their convenience and the fact that they allow people to manage their finances from their mobile devices rather than being forced to do so at home from their computers.

Report shows that NFC technology is losing ground

The report from iResearch suggests that mobile shopping is no longer the main attractor of most mobile commerce platforms. According to the report, online money transfers and banking features are quickly becoming the main reason people use these platforms. As these services see more attention from consumers, their use of NFC technology is beginning to diminish. The report shows that NFC-based mobile commerce services in China dropped from 2.6% in 2012 to just 0.8% in 2013. NFC has never been popular in China and mobile commerce services have managed to find success without making use of the technology.

China is becoming increasingly mobile-centric

China has established itself as a very active and attractive mobile market. Not only are mobile payments flourishing throughout the country, but mobile games are also generating a great deal of profit and economic activity. Advertisers in China are also beginning to focus on mobile consumers more aggressively, launching interactive mobile marketing campaigns that are designed to be more dynamic than traditional marketing initiatives.

A recent report from MEF has shown that uptake is driving a broad range of activities over this channel.

The Global Consumer Insights Series on Mobile Money has now been released by the MEF, and it has revealed its belief that mobile payments are among the primary drivers in m-commerce as well as the consumption of a broad range of other types of content over that channel.

The report was based on an analysis of data from 13 different countries.

This included the answers to survey questions from approximately 10,000 respondents. This data pointed out a number of global and regional trends in the uptake of mobile payments and the ways in which this adoption was stimulating growth across other areas in this channel. The report showed that last year, 15 percent of users of mobile media had made some kind of digital purchase over a smartphone or tablet.

Wallets were the most popular form of mobile payments that were used by the respondents.

The largest group of those that had used these digital transactions (representing 7 percent of the total number of respondents) had used mobile wallets, particularly those that used NFC technology to verify and complete the transaction.

The research from this report was conducted along with On Device Research. It has underscored the importance of users of smartphone based money to the overall m-commerce marketplace. They pointed out that the individuals who are already using digital transactions over smartphones and tablets are 26 percent more likely to make a purchase over their mobile devices.

Worldwide, a tremendous 91 percent of those digital money users also made some kind of purchase over their gadgets in 2013. Comparatively, among all mobile consumers, 65 percent did the same.

Users of mobile payments are also the ones who spend the largest amounts on individual purchases. In fact, they have a 10 percent lower likelihood of making a purchase of a low value. Moreover, their purchases are 14 percent more likely to be within the mid-value range. That said, they are not only more likely to make more purchases, but they also take part in a broader range of activities over that channel, such as scanning QR codes (12 percent more likely), make a charitable donation (11 percent more likely), or use location based services (10 percent more likely).