Author: BWild

WorldPay has revealed its latest data in a whitepaper that showed that paying using smartphones is favored.

According to the latest research findings from online and mobile payments and risk services provider, WorldPay, consumers around the world are using their smartphones as an alternative method of paying with credit cards on an increasing basis when it comes to buying video games.

The whitepaper revealed that gamers like the opportunity to use their gadgets instead of plastic cards.

The whitepaper was entitled “Video Games Payment Preferences” and it included the data regarding the outcome of the survey responses from 7,554 gamers who have purchased a video game online. It asked them about the frustrations that they experienced throughout this process, as well as about their interest in alternative methods of paying, such as the use of mobile payments. Among the respondents, 51 percent were using those alternatives, when compared to 46 percent who were still using debit and credit cards for buying these products.

It should be noted that mobile payments were one category of the alternative payments in the WorldPay survey.

Aside from mobile payments, other methods that were included in the alternative category were real money based e-wallets, credits and points based systems, direct transfers and direct debits, mobile phone carrier billing, and cash vouchers.

The study also determined that the highest amount of use for alternative and mobile payments was from consumers residing within emerging marketplaces. It determined that 71 percent of gamers in Russia were using alternatives, while the same could be said of 79 percent of the consumers in China.

WorldPay explained that e-wallets have been a considerable driving force behind the increase in the use of alternative and mobile payments. Among all overall transactions, this category made up 27 percent of the total. This was true regardless of whether gamers were purchasing new games, or expansions or modifications to existing video games. Although this may represent only just slightly over one quarter of all of the transaction types in terms of volume, the company pointed out that this should still be taken very seriously as it is also an extremely rapidly growing category.

During the first half of this year, digital ad spending has spiked when compared to last year.

The latest estimates regarding digital ad spending and mobile marketing for the first half of the year have now been released by Kantar Media, and they have shown that the figures have grown considerably over last year at the same time.

The total ad spend in the United States increased 2.0 percent across the market, year over year.

However, eMarketer also pointed out on Monday that “But Q2 2013 was notable for an even faster rate of increase, at 3.5% over Q2 2012”. This included the figures for not only mobile marketing, but all online advertising spending.

In the first half of 2013, the mobile marketing spending increased notably.

The report also indicated that beyond mobile marketing, digital display ads experienced an increase of 5.3 percent over the first half of the year. However, it is important to note that this particular statistic does not include those displayed over smartphones and tablets, and does not include the results that were seen over video.

Video and mobile marketing are the two areas in which the largest increases in investment have been recorded. In fact, it is indicated that the growth for each of those individual digital spending areas rose by a great deal more than the figure recorded for the increases in display only.

It did not come as much of a surprise to the authors of the report that retail remained in the lead of the spending for mobile marketing and digital ad spending. However, the overall digital ad growth (not including video and smartphone and tablet ads) in the second quarter of this year was quite small compared to a year beforehand, landing at only 0.1 percent growth this year.

The report added that the fastest rate of increase was in the telecom industry, where there was a rise of 19.5 percent. Insurance and restaurants were also seen as rapid growth categories for mobile marketing as well as digital ad spending, as they each achieved overall increases in spending in the double digit percentages. It was estimated by eMarketer that the total overall ad spending in the United States will see a growth of 3.6 percent in 2013.