Category: Featured News

American m-commerce is falling behind the worldwide trend

| December 29, 2015

eMarketer has now released new data that has show that consumers in the U.S. aren’t keeping up with the globe.

Some of the latest data issued by eMarketer has revealed that American consumers purchased an estimated total of $48 billion of products and services over m-commerce channels throughout 2015.

That represents an increase of 32 percent when compared to the same time in 2014.

Throughout 2015, m-commerce shopping made up an estimated 22 percent of all online retail shopping, according to the eMarketer figures for the United States. That represents a rise of 3 percentage points over the same figure from 2014. While that does appear to be a strong figure, it also shows that mobile shopping is being used more broadly in other parts of the world. For example, in South Korea, 46 percent of all online retail sales were conducted over smartphones or tablets. That represented 5.1 percent of the whole retail sales total for 2015.

Similar m-commerce figures were seen in other parts of the world, showing that the U.S. is lagging behind.

M-Commerce News - US Consumers not keeping up with rest of the worldIn China, for example, 50 percent of all online shopping sales and nearly 8 percent of retail purchases occurred over smartphones and tablets throughout 2015, according to the estimates from eMarketer.

Comparatively, in the U.S., consumers continue to use their mobile devices primarily for informing themselves about products as opposed to actually making a purchase. In the United States, under 2 percent of total retail sales are conducted by smartphone or tablet. Moreover, even though there have been some major mobile payments players that have entered that market – such as Apple and Google – only 14 percent of Americans said they would be interested in purchasing something over their mobile devices during the holiday season, said statistics from Bankrate.

Even specifically among Millennials, the demographic most likely to use their smartphones for activities such as shopping, only 20 percent said they had intended to use m-commerce for holiday purchases either online or through wallet apps that would be used in a retail brick and mortar location. It remains clear that the United States is a market facing considerable barriers to mobile shopping.

The FDA sees potential in wearable technology use

| December 28, 2015

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is looking at a new wave of wearables that can monitor serious illnesses.

While fitness trackers such as the popular Fitbit and Jawbone gadgets, there is a new form of wearable technology making its way into the marketplace and in this case, it will be necessary for FDA approval to be issued in order to be able to sell them in the United States.

That said, the FDA is looking forward to the opportunity to find certain wearables that work for medical purposes.

The first waves of these wearable technology devices are going to be heading to market soon, after extensive time in the lab in which they have been developed and extensively tested in order to meet the requirements of the FDA. These gadgets have been created in order to detect, monitor and track serious diseases in their wearers. This could help to enhance and broaden access to high quality health care and could create a new industry worth tens of billions of dollars.

This new wearable technology business opportunity could be very helpful for patients with diabetes, epilepsy and other illnesses.

Wearable Technology - FDAThe FDA is already getting itself ready to handle the anticipated influx of mobile health gadgets that are hoping to be released pending its approval. According to the associate director for digital health with the agency, Bakul Patel, the FDA is already in the process of reviewing three new applications for senior health scientist positions that will have a focus on that specific category.

Despite the fact that the FDA has been called a barrier to innovation by certain entrepreneurs in the tech industry, the agency is hoping to alter that reputation and to become an important partner in the effort to ensure that devices can be developed that will be genuinely helpful in improving the health and quality of life of medical patients. It is also keen to encourage health insurance companies to start covering devices that receive official approval.

After all, patients, doctors, insurance companies and tech developers, alike, want to know that there is actual clinical benefit to a wearable technology device before it is released to market along with a slew of promises.