Category: Mobile Commerce

Relatively few consumers are using their mobile devices to purchase products online and in physical stores

Mobile payments has become a powerful force in the retail sector, but many consumers remain loyal to conventional forms of commerce. During the holiday season, many retailers saw a significant increase in the number of mobile shoppers they served, but number of mobile consumers was lower than what many companies had been anticipating this year. According to data from Bankrate, only 14% of smartphone owners in the United States actually used their device to make a mobile payment during the Thanksgiving shopping weekend.

28% of smartphone owners made a mobile payment during 2015

Information from the Federal Reserve also highlights the relatively sluggish activity being seen in the mobile payments space this year. According to the agency, only 28% of smartphone users made a mobile payment throughout 2015. Mobile payments were particularly popular among millennials, who have become quite comfortable with mobile technology in general. Older consumers have been slow to embrace mobile payments, largely due to security concerns and basic disinterest.

Security continues to be a major problem for the mobile payments space

Security has been a cause for concern within the mobile payments space for years. Many consumers have expressed worry that their financial information could be at risk if they make a mobile payment. Retailers and companies responsible for mobile payment platforms have been working to ensure consumer information is kept safe, but sophisticated cyber attacks has made this a relatively difficult endeavor to accomplish. In order for mobile payments to thrive, security measures must be improved, ensuring that the financial data of consumers is guarded against exploitation.

More consumers are expected to make a mobile transaction as new services become available

While the mobile payments sector may have seen relatively slow growth during this year’s holiday season, stakeholders in the growing market expect to see more robust growth in 2016. Next year, promising new mobile payments platforms are expected to enter into new markets, where they will find a consumer base that is willing and eager to use their mobile devices to make purchases.

According to the telecom company’s CEO, Randall Stephenson, it will soon be taking this big step.

Telco giant, AT&T currently has a mobile entertainment service in the works, according to its CEO and chairperson, Randall Stephenson, who recently spoke on the subject at an investor conference.

Stephenson discussed the company’s intentions to launch a service to compete with Go90 from Verizon.

The CEO also stated that AT&T plans to use this new mobile entertainment service as a part of an aggressive effort to provide an OTT content bundle for people who are not satellite television subscribers and who have either a single home television or who prefer to view their entertainment media over mobile. He pointed out that there are currently an estimated 30 million homes in the country that don’t subscribe to pay television services.

Through mobile entertainment services, AT&T is “very interested” in reaching more cost-conscious consumers.

Stephenson also said that the company would soon be discussing this mobile media service in much more detail. That said, it was not at all made clear whether or not the service would be made available in the very near future or if consumers would need to wait for some time before they would be able to take advantage of this new choice.

Aside from the exclusively mobile technology side of the spectrum, Stephenson said that the company would soon be making an announcement with regards to premium content package. That announcement is expected to be made in January. What is expected is what the CEO called “mobile stacked content together with a really robust wireless asset.”

These announcements were made by the CEO while he spoke at the 43rd Annual Global Media and Communications Conference, which took place in New York. Though analysts were expecting him to offer more details for analysts following the DirecTV acquisition, that wasn’t the case.

Instead, he focused most of his attention on discussing the two primary ways in which content would now be delivered and the fact that they are “buying a big bundle of content” and that they “are also streaming the content to a mobile device.”