Forbes Insights teams with Appinions to examine the mobile commerce space

Forbes Insights has partnered with Appinions in order to release a new study concerning the mobile payments phenomenon. The study aims to shed light on which companies and people have the most influence on the mobile commerce sector. The study makes use of the Appinions platform, which is designed to track trends and pertinent information in the digital world. Mobile commerce has become very popular, but the field is quite competitive, making it somewhat difficult to identify those that have established a strong presence within the market.

Appionons platform allows Forbes Insights to examine digital conversations concerning mobile commerce

Using the Appinions platform, Forbes Insights was able to examine more than 2 billion documents pertaining to mobile payments in some way. This information covered blogs, news postings, forums, and social media updates between December 6, 2013 and March 7, 2014. In examining this data, Forbes Insight has been able to provide Influence Scores for organizations that were active in the mobile commerce space.

Apple is considered one of the most influential groups in mobile commerce

According to Forbes Insights, there has been a significant increase in the conversations relating to mobile payments thus far in 2014. Many of the conversations that have to do with mobile commerce are being centered on Apple’s interest in the sector. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently announced the company’s interest in mobile commerce, which sparked a great deal of speculation concerning Apple’s approach to the sector. Apple has no interest in using NFC technology to facilitate mobile purchases, but it has been reportedly working on a platform that will make payments possible through its various mobile devices.

Several companies have attracted a great deal of attention from mobile consumers

Notably, Apple, Google, PayPal, Amazon, and Satrbucks are companies that have significant influence in the mobile commerce sector. These companies are generating a great deal of hype behind the idea of shopping for and purchasing products online using a mobile device. Conversations concerning these companies and the role they play in the mobile field have been growing at a rapid pace.

Consumers are far more likely to want to stick with an OS than to a handset brand, says a new study.

According to a mobile technology research report issued by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, smartphone and tablet users have a greater likelihood of remaining loyal to a specific operating system than to an actual brand of handset.

This is only confirming news that many brands, such as Samsung, have already realized.

Many manufacturers have already worked this mobile technology knowledge into the way that they design and market their products, in order to ensure that they continue to appeal to the areas in which consumers will become – and remain – loyal. They have found that it is exceptionally important to build brand relationships with their customers in order to boost and maintain sales, instead of focusing exclusively on products.

The mobile technology report found that only 41 percent of consumers stay loyal to their device brand.

At the same time, that same report indicated that while less than half of consumers will stay loyal to their brand of mobile device when it comes time for an upgrade, a massive 68 percent will prefer to use the same operating system to which they have become accustomed.

The Kantar report stated that “Apple is, of course, unaffected by this – iOS is Apple, Apple is iOS.” It pointed out that if those customers wanted to bail out on the operating system and choose Android, Windows, or even BlackBerry, instead, then they would be required to re-purchase all of their apps and would need to copy content from one type of operating system to another while they have to learn an entirely new operating system.

The Kantar Worldpanel global insights director, Dominic Sunebo, released a mobile technology news statement that indicated that manufacturers of mobile devices that are based on the Android operating system should be aware of not only the user experience that consumers are enjoying through the use of the product, itself, but also the emotional connections that are being built with that experience as opposed to the rational links. This can help them to better develop and maintain relationships with those consumers.