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Mobile commerce study reveals consumer payment preferences

Rebecca | June 26, 2013

The research revealed that 29 percent would rather pay with their smartphones than credit or cash.

A recent mobile commerce study has revealed that nearly one third of Americans have stated that if they could carry only a single item when they leave the house, it would be their smartphones, even over and above their wallets.

This preference has occurred at the same time that a growing interest has revealed itself in smartphone payments.

These discoveries were among the results of a mobile commerce analysis that was conducted by PayPal. It also indicated that most consumers in the United States – 86 percent – wish that they wouldn’t need to carry a wallet at all. The report on the study also looked into the consumer attitudes in four other countries, which were: Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany. They saw a similar trend toward smartphone payments in each of those countries.

At the same time, the report indicated that businesses are falling behind consumer interest in mobile commerce.

Mobile commerce mobile payments What it showed was that businesses are not keeping up with what consumers want from mobile commerce and payments. It has indicated that 68 percent of Americans have found themselves in a situation in which they would want to buy something but they didn’t have any cash on them. Another 30 percent stated that this happens to them frequently. However, PayPal did not include any data about the attitudes regarding business owners for accepting smartphone payments within the report.

Another mobile commerce study performed by Gartner, showed that transactions will likely grow to reach $235.4 billion before the end of the year. Moreover, by 2017, they predict that transactions will hit $721 billion. At the same time, NFC technology – which has been used for many forms of mobile payments services – has not taken off as had previously been predicted, and many high profile services (such as ISIS and Google Wallet) have struggled to take off.

The PayPal mobile commerce survey indicated that shoppers are ready and looking for a change in the methods available to them for making payments, but there is yet to be a market winner because no single system has emerged.

Mobile marketing has massive potential in Africa

Rebecca | June 24, 2013

M&C Saatchi Mobile has just released a whitepaper to present this concept in greater detail.

A white paper has just been presented by M&C Saatchi Mobile that detailed the tremendous promise that mobile marketing holds in Africa.

The report indicated that the smartphone channel is central to advertising in the continent.

The report showed that Africa is proving to be a very promising emerging region for mobile marketing, driven by affordable smartphones and strong economic growth. This report is only the first in a series that the company intends to release regarding various global regions and the part that smartphones play in the relevance of the advertising there. Many businesses and brands are now functioning under the impression that the best way to reach consumers in Africa is by way of this channel.

This whitepaper has also shown that mobile marketing will play a vital role in the continued development of the region.

Mobile marketing shows promise in Africa It illustrated the way the continent was able to leapfrog over the fixed line telecommunications stage that was traditionally used as a stepping stone upward toward the latest, which is the mobile marketing world of today. Africa has moved straight to the cellular services domain instead of stopping and waiting at telecommunications, first.

According to M&C Saatchi Mobile, the new primary means by way African consumers access the internet is over their smartphones. At the moment, there are 84 million internet enabled devices that are already owned and are being used. This makes the channel a very promising one for mobile marketing and reaching consumers very quickly and directly.

According to the company’s global CEO, James Hilton, “Contrary to popular thinking, Africa is not an under-developed region – it’s the second largest and fastest-growing mobile phone market in the world after China.” He went on to say in the statement that he gave about the mobile marketing report, that “The large numbers of African mobile consumers with web-connected smartphones using their device to surf the internet or download apps shows that the assumption that mobile services in Africa are only about SMS and low-end handsets is seriously out of date.”