Category: Mobile Commerce

A device to predict the future may not yet have been released, but industry analysts have their own forecasts.

Mobile technology truly solidified itself last year. It was no longer something new or luxurious. It became the standard and the vast majority of people have it. It is the new worldwide norm.

With a new year underway, industry influencers are weighing in with the direction they think 2017 will take.

This year’s mobile technology market will, after all, be taking a new direction. It’s no longer a matter of making itself mainstream. That has already happened. Fresh directions need to be taken in terms of both hardware and software.

The entire concept of “mobile” is expanding. It’s not just a smartphone anymore. Last year planted the seed for the widespread growth of virtual reality, augmented reality, smart home gadgets and even the beginnings of artificial intelligence. So now we’re starting to wonder where that leaves us. In which direction will we take all this smart tech?

Industry analysts are taking a hard look at 2017 mobile technology and have some big predictions.

Among those mobile tech forecasts are the following:

• Changes in “reality” – the stage has been set for virtual reality, augmented reality is already hot (greatly thanks to Pokémon Go) and the iPhone 8 is rumored to be heading in a mixed reality direction. AR, VR and mixed reality are all headed toward more mainstream use.

• Artificial intelligence – we may not yet have reached the point where a robot housekeepers will be moving into our homes, but websites will be getting the next best thing through the more commonplace use of AI-based chatbots.

• Mobile Internet of Things – IoT has been a hot topic for the last handful of years but this year will start to see its use in a much more standard way now that smartphones are in the majority of people’s hands, handbags or pockets. For many, the smartphone is the core of a consumer’s connected life. In 2017, they will become a component of a broader smart environment.

To a certain degree, mobile technology will become so popular that it won’t need the word “mobile” to be used in many areas anymore. Online transactions and interactions will continue shifting away from desktop. The question is whether or not 2017 will bring the world to the point that web traffic is simply assumed to be mobile traffic – no specification needed.

The country’s effort to go cashless has led to an unprecedented growth in smartphone digital payments.

A new study predicted that the Indian mobile wallet market will experience a growth rate of more than 190 percent by fiscal year 2022. The forecast was made as a result of research conducted by Assocham, a trade organization, and RNCOS, a business consulting firm.

The prediction was that mobile payment transactions are likely to reach a CAGR of over 160 percent per year.

That rate will continue to increase from the current fiscal year through to 2022. At that time, the mobile wallet market will be worth 250 billion, said the prediction. That is a substantial increase over the current size of the market which is estimated to be just over half a billion.

The report on the forecast suggested that there are several reasons that the use of mobile payments in India is growing exceptionally quickly. To start, e-commerce as a whole is on the rise. This is a trend occuring worldwide. Moreover, mobile internet penetration is also growing rapidly, meaning that more consumers have access to these options than ever before.

That said, the mobile wallet market is rising faster in India than in most other areas of the world.

With rising smartphone penetration, the Indian environment is also aligning well for mobile wallet use in a way that is not being experienced in other areas of the globe. For one thing, there is an increase in disposable incomes. More people have money to spend on areas outside of vital essentials.

With all these factors combined with the country’s efforts to reduce the use of cash, people are turning to their phones to pay for products and services. This is, after all, a country that is greatly unbanked and in which it is not necessarily commonplace to have credit cards. Therefore, when cash is not an option, people are turning to the option they already have in their hands: mobile phones.

This has created a nearly ideal opportunity for mobile wallet market growth and it appears as though this will continue for at least another five years.