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M-payments have yet to take off in the travel sector

Airlines see a mere 13% of volume on mobile devices according to new report.

A recent report from Netherlands-based global multichannel payment company Adyen revealed that travel made up 15.5% of mobile transactions on its global payments network in Q1 2016. While m-payments made up 32% of overall online payments in this year’s first quarter, in the travel sector, the share plummets to 15%. According to Adyen, these findings show that there is opportunity to extend the reach of smartphones and tablets in the travel industry.

Compared to other industries, the travel sector sees significantly fewer mobile transactions.

The report – Mobile Payments Index 2016: Travel Edition – shows that while accommodation services see 17% of volume on mobile devices, airlines see only 13%. Also, tablets are the preferred choice among mobile devices when it comes to booking in the travel industry.

m-payments travel industryPresident of North America at Adyen, Kamran Zaki, stated that the travel sector is seeing notably fewer browser-based payments happen on mobile compared to other industries. Zaki added that “an average of only 15 percent of online payments take place on a mobile device, compared to over 30 percent across all verticals” among airline and accommodation merchants on the Adyen platform.

However, airlines investing in mobile offerings are seeing higher m-payments activity.

Even though only 13% of transactions for airlines are occurring on mobile, Adyen’s report also pointed out that the airlines investing in their mobile offerings are actually seeing higher than average activity in regard to mobile payments.

For instance, European airline Transavia has a share of mobile payments that is 65% higher than the average.

Adyen CCO Roelant Prins said “We are moving to a future where many loyal travel industry customers will make their entire journey in-app, from initial booking to final checkout, with payments as a key step in that journey.” He added that aside from in-app, travel merchants who invest in optimized experiences for web browsers across key types of devices are already seeing a significant increase in their mobile transaction volume.

Adyen believes that the travel industry has more opportunity to take a larger share of m-payments by branching into other mobile services like smartphone check-in among other convenient customer services.

Co-Founder of Atari isn’t satisfied with the mobile gaming market

Bushnell has teamed up with Spil Games to make new mobile games.

Nolan Bushnell, most notably known as the co-founder of Atari and considered to be one of the founding fathers of modern video games, is returning to the gaming sector after 40-or-so years, and plans to release his first wave of mobile games with new partner, Dutch publisher, Spil Games. This will be Bushnell’s first step into the mobile gaming market.

Bushnell never stopped designing games and now wants to make mobile games according to his law.

According to Tech Times, even though it’s been decades since the 73-year-old Atari co-founder was part of the gaming scene, Bushnell said that he has never stopped designing games and was impressed with the success of the mobile gaming market, mostly because games for smartphones are so readily available. That’s why he reportedly chose this particular market to monetize the games that he’s been continually designing in his free time.

Mobile Games- Mobile Gaming MarketThat said, the veteran game designer doesn’t plan to make games like others already on the market. In fact, he’s not overly impressed with the games he has on his phone and finds them so frustrating at times that at certain points he’s been tempted to throw his phone, reported The Guardian.

With Spil Games, Bushnell will be developing and publishing new mobile games that will incorporate his “easy to learn, and difficult to master,” game laws.

“There are a lot of mobile games out there that just miss it; they miss what I’d call ‘hardcore fundamental game design’. At Atari we had to totally focus on that, because our graphics were so terrible, because the technology was so primitive by today’s standards,” Bushnell said.

To start, Bushnell will release three mobile game titles into the mobile gaming market.

His deal with Spil is reportedly good for three mobile game titles and his role with the company is likely to include producer, designer and adviser. He said of Spil that it has great analytics, great “stuff” and an excellent understanding of marketplaces. He also feels that they’re a fun group of people to work with and said he sees the same drive in the company that initially motivated him to work with games years ago.

It will be interesting to see what type of games Bushnell brings to the mobile gaming market.