Author: BWild

Mobile payments continue to see strong growth throughout India, largely due to the availability of mobile wallets

India’s mobile commerce ecosystem is maturing at a rapid pace. In 2015, consumers throughout the country began realizing the benefits associated with mobile payments technology. The most notable benefit of this technology can be found in mobile wallets, which serve as digital versions of their physical counterparts. These wallets can be used to store a wealth of information, including financial details and special deals being offered by merchants. Mobile wallets have helped power the growth of the mobile payments space in India.

Mobile wallets have become quite popular with consumers

Currently, there are 12 mobile wallets available in India, coming from Paytm, MobiKwik, Oxigen, M-Pesa, and mRupee. Throughout India, some 125 million people use these mobile wallets, with Paytm accounting for the largest share of these consumers. Research and consultancy firm RNCOS recently released a study concerning the mobile wallet market in India. The study found that Indian consumers are quite interested in mobile payments, which has lead to a dramatic rise in the demand for digital wallets.

Mobile wallet market expected to reach $183 million by 2019

According to the study from RNCOS, India’s mobile wallet market currently stands at $53 million. The market is expected to reach $183 million by 2019. Several companies are beginning to provide mobile payments services to consumers. As more people gain access to smartphones and tablets, they are becoming more active in the mobile commerce space. This has created an incentive for retailers and other businesses to support mobile payments in order to effectively engage consumers that are becoming increasingly mobile-centric.

More consumers are gaining access to smartphones and bank accounts

Some 400 million new consumers will have smartphones and bank accounts in the near future, making India a very attractive mobile commerce market. Retailers and financial institutions are expected to take advantage of this by offering new services that appeal to the needs of consumers. Competition may ensure that innovation comes to the mobile payments market, allowing mobile wallets to become more capable than they are currently.

The company intends to continue releasing Android based smartphones over 2016 but isn’t dropping its OS.

Even though BlackBerry has been discussing its intentions to continue to release smartphones based on Android throughout 2016 and potentially onward, the company has confirmed that it doesn’t intend to give up on its own operating system, BB10.

The Canadian smartphone manufacturer has said that it remains committed to supporting its own OS.

When BlackBerry’s CEO, John Chen wrote a recent blog post on behalf of the company, he expressed that “At CES 2016, BlackBerry has been busy discussing self-driving cars, global carrier support for Priv and consumer healthcare apps. But as we shift our energies toward all these exciting opportunities, does that mean the BlackBerry 10 operating system is dead? Far from it.”

Still, BlackBerry does intend to continue the successes it has seen by moving toward Android based devices.

Therefore, the company plans to keep releasing smartphones based on Google’s mobile operating system, but at the same time it will keep up its commitment to supporting the devices it has already released based on its BB10 OS, such as the Classic and Passport. Chen’s blog post said that the upcoming version of BB10, which will be 10.3.3 will have NIAP compliance certification. This means that the OS will have undergone “the strictest government-grade security tests.”

According to the CEO, the added testing will make it possible for the company to offer an increasingly secure ecosystem for its government customers and others that require the highest possible security levels for their smartphone device users.

Equally, Chen also pointed out that BlackBerry plans to keep up the work it has started on steadily improving its BB10 operating system throughout 2016. This will occur at the same time as it continues the development of smartphones that will be based on Android, following the positive reception that the Priv received upon its release at the end of last year. Within the blog post, Chen expressed that “We’ll share more details about our roadmap when we’re ready.” The company has been taking on some dramatic strategies as it works to claw its way back into solid relevance.