Category: Mobile Commerce

Mobile commerce finds strong growth in mobile applications

Mobile applications are beginning to play a major role in mobile commerce. These applications are starting to serve as adequate replacements for NFC technology, allowing more consumers to participate in mobile commerce than ever before. Canalys, a leading market research firm, has released a new report highlighting the growth of mobile applications and the role they are beginning to play in the adoption and expansion of mobile commerce. The report suggests that mobile commerce could come to replace traditional online shopping methods in the near future.

Report highlights performance of mobile applications

According to the report, downloads of mobile applications grew by 11% in the first quarter of 2013. Approximately 13 billion apps were downloaded during that quarter. Many of these applications offered mobile commerce services or some kind of in-app purchase opportunity. Together, these applications accounted for $2.2 billion in paid downloads and in-app purchases during the first quarter, a 9% increase over the previous quarter. The report suggests that the growing popularity of mobile applications, as well as their increasing value, is largely due to the convenience these applications offer, especially in regards to mobile commerce.

Mobile everything is becoming the favored solution for consumers

More consumers are showing favor for using their mobile devices for daily activities, such as online searches, shopping, and engaging in social networks. Mobile services typically offer consumers a range of opportunities to make in-app purchase, either by unlocking additional features for an application or simply purchasing a product through that application. Canalys estimates that the growing popularity of these applications will push the download mark to over 20 billion by the end of this year and that these applications will account for $3.1 billion in revenue.

Mobile commerce still facing several challenges

Canalys notes that the mobile commerce market is still immature and is difficult to measure accurately. There are several challenges that mobile commerce faces that could put a damper on the markets promising future. The most significant of these challenges is security, which is growing more important as consumers begin to understand how much their financial information could be at risk. The continued growth of mobile commerce will also be largely dependent on the social and economic impact it will have. A negative impact will cause the support for mobile commerce to all but evaporate, while a positive impact will encourage more consumers to get involved.

Many IT executives around the world are struggling to meet the demands of a growing mobile market.

Based on the findings of the 2013 IT Priorities Survey from Protiviti, many of today’s IT professionals will find it difficult to meet the challenges of mobile commerce, as they are expected to deal with and manage various aspects of mobile technology without having the necessary expertise required.

The survey reveals that IT professionals have only average mobile technical knowledge.

Protiviti’s research results show that almost 200 survey participants, which included IT vice presidents, IT directors, chief security officers, chief information officers, and chief technology officers, scored only an average competent rating for mobile commerce and social media technical knowledge. More specifically, the participants achieved an average 2.8 rank out of 5 in terms of their tech knowledge for the following: m-commerce security, social media security, m-commerce integration, social media integration, and m-commerce policy.

There is a strong demand for mobile commerce, which is rapidly expanding throughout the globe.

Gary Anderson, Protiviti’s managing director for their Asia Pacific region, said that the fast and continued worldwide growth of mobile commerce shows that there is a powerful demand from both consumers and businesses who want to be able to access the information they want wherever they are, whenever they want it. However, with this demand also comes the potential for bigger technology risks.

Anderson went on to say that the result of this puts substantial pressure on businesses and IT departments, “as they are asked to deliver more mobile technology-enabled services. This pressure forces them to take on considerably more risk than they’re prepared for – especially in terms of policy, integration, data management, security and data privacy related to mobile commerce and social media proliferation and innovation.”

According to the survey results, of the 21 technical knowledge areas that were analyzed, the two chief areas that require the biggest improvements are mobile commerce security and social media security. Due to the need for greater security on these fronts, chief information officers (CIOs) and their IT staff will need to work on bettering security to meet the growing number of state and federal information security requirements, and to deal with other technology threats that will only increase as mobile commerce expands around the world.