Author: BWild

Study highlights the growing interest in mobile commerce coming from consumers

Interest in mobile payments is expected to grow in the coming years, powered by the introduction of new payment platforms and services, like Apple Pay. Gartner has released a new study that predicts how this growing interest will affect mobile commerce revenue in the U.S. New mobile payment services are becoming available on a seemingly daily basis, but high profile companies, such as Apple and Google, often attract more attention and generate more excitement in the mobile space, encouraging consumers to participate in digital commerce.

Mobile revenue may account for 50% of all digital commerce revenue in the US by 2017

Gartner’s study predicts that mobile commerce revenue in the U.S. will account for 50% of all digital commerce revenue by 2017. This growth is expected to be powered by the growing attention mobile commerce is receiving and the increased capabilities of smartphones and tablets, as well as the applications they use. Mobile apps are likely to contribute heavily to the growth of mobile revenue, as these apps serve as the primary way people engage in the digital space from their mobile devices. As the application experience improves, people are more likely to use them to purchase products and make payments online.

Study shows that people are becoming more comfortable with mobile shopping

The study also predicts that more than $2 billion in online shopping will be done by the end of 2016. Consumers are becoming more comfortable with the idea of mobile commerce and are beginning to shop online more frequently from their mobile devices. Consumers are also becoming more comfortable with digital assistants, applications that are designed to help consumers fill out their information on retail sites when purchasing products.

Geolocation is becoming a powerful tool for retailers

The study predicts that retailers will begin offering location-based deals to consumers more regularly in the future. These initiatives make use of geolocation technology to provide consumers with special offers from retailers that are close to them. This represents an effective way for retailers to engage with local consumers that are interested in mobile commerce.

Rovio Entertainment will be cutting up to 16 percent of staff due to lack of success.

The Finish video game developer and entertainment company that is well known for creating its smash mobile game hit, Angry Birds, will be eliminating up to 130 jobs at its home base in Espoo, Finland, located near the country’s capital Helsinki, due to a drop in profits, according to a statement made in a recent blog post by the company’s CEO Mikael Hed.

Rovio has approximately 800 employees worldwide.

The company boosted its staff and developed new games, such as Plunder Pirates and Amazing Alex after the success of Angry Birds, but its newer titles failed to be as popular. As a result, sales growth slowed and profits dropped as rival mobile games like Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans earned huge mobile gaming success.

In his post, the CEO said that “We have been building our team on assumptions of faster growth than have materialized.”

Back in 2010, the Angry Birds mobile game was the top-earning app in Apple’s US store.

Aside from being the best-earning app, the game’s many versions have totaled over 2 billon downloads. Rovio’s revenue doubled in 2012, but since then it has slowed as its new titles have been unable to climb to the top of the charts.

Rovio had wanted to avoid Zynga’s fate of relying too heavily on its game FarmVille for a great deal of its revenue, by expanding beyond its Angry Birds video game franchise. It also attempted to seek the success of Candy Crush and Clash of Clans by imitating certain features of these games, such as by including in-app purchasing. The in-game purchases of these two free-to-play games encourage gamers to continue spending a small amount to accelerate their game progress, instead of a one-time payment, which was the case with the majority of the Angry Birds iterations.

The mobile game industry is believed to be a future source of growth for Finland’s economy, but Rovio’s job cuts may have dampened this hope. In August, the company announced that at the end of the year, Mikael Hed will be joining the company’s board of directors and Rovio’s current chief commercial officer will be assuming Hed’s position.