Tag: mobile commerce

Hong Kong residents now have access to new mobile payments service

A new mobile payments service has been launched in Hong Kong by Hang Seng Bank. The service leverages NFC technology to allow consumers to purchase goods from more than 1,000 outlets throughout Hong Kong. This service is one among several that have been introduced to Hong Kong in recent months, but Hang Seng aims to establish the service as a leader among consumers, a growing number of whom are demanding comprehensive and convenient mobile payments platforms.

Interest in mobile commerce rising among consumers

Hong Kong has long been an economic hub and home to tech-savvy consumers of all kinds. Consumers in Hong Kong have been very receptive of mobile commerce over the past few years, largely due to their interests in mobile technology and the high penetration of smartphones and tablets. These consumers particular favor online shopping, which is considered relatively convenient when conducted over a mobile device. Therefore, mobile payments have managed to establish a favored place with consumers.

Service leverages capabilities of NFC technology

The new mobile payments service is based entirely on NFC technology. That means that only NFC-enabled mobile devices can make use of the service provided by Hang Seng. These devices are relatively rare, but are becoming significantly more common with every passing month as device makers work to meet the demands of consumers. Currently, the most popular NFC-enabled device happens to be the Samsung Galaxy S III. Samsung recently released the Galaxy S4, which is also equipped with NFC technology, but this smartphone failed to perform up to the company’s standards in terms of sales.

NFC remains popular despite security concerns

Hang Seng believes that its mobile payments service will be well received among consumers. There are concerns regarding its use of NFC technology, however, due to how attractive this technology is to hackers. In the past, NFC technology has been explo

ited to access a consumer’s financial information. Such attacks have won NFC a fairly dubious reputation, but the technology remains one of the cornerstones of mobile payments.

The sales from the first half of this year have already managed to exceed all of those from last year.

According to data released by Affiliate Window, there have already been more mobile commerce sales in 2013 in the first half of the year than there were in all of 2012.

This, according to the latest report from the performance marketing company on these transactions.

Affiliate Window is a performance marketing company. The report that it issued regarding mobile commerce sales showed that among all of the sales that it is experiencing at the moment, 20.89 percent are now originating from smartphones and tablets. This was a notable increase over even a month beforehand when that same figure had been 18.16 percent.

The growth in mobile commerce transactions was even more significant when compared to January.

The report issued by the company also showed that in January 2013, the number of transactions had been far lower than in the last month of the report. In January, it had been more than 6 percent lower than it was in June.

Mobile commerce is playing a rapidly growing role in online shopping and is representing an increasingly large share of those sales. In June, it had a share of 8.52 percent, while in May it had been 7.5 percent. This represents the first time that sales originating from smartphones have ever had a share of the online shopping market that was greater than 8 percent.

Moreover, the report also showed that for the first time since March 2011, the share of the traffic that was originating from iPads had fallen below the share that was originating from the iPhone. That said, tablets as a whole are still being seen as a much larger contributor to shopping. They represent a much larger share of the transactions occurring online.

Equally, Affiliate Window recorded that the conversion rates that it is experiencing have plateaued at just a little bit more than three percent across both tablet and smartphone devices. The second half of this year should prove to be very interesting in terms of defining trends that can be compared with those from previous years.