Apple may be inching into mobile payments arena with iPhone upgrades

While Apple has not made any firm announcement concerning its future involvement in mobile payments, the company may have a major impact on that sector in the coming months. Wells Fargo has raised its projected price range for Apple stock this week, citing news that the famed technology company will become more flexible in its relationship with carriers of its iPhone devices. New technology that is expected to be introduced with the iPhone 5S is also creating some buzz and this technology could help boost the adoption of the already popular mobile device.

Fingerprint sensors could boost mobile security

Apple is expected to include fingerprint sensing technology in its iPhone 5S, which is likely to be released later this year. This technology comes from AethenTec, which was acquired by Apple somewhat recently. The company specializes in security technologies and its fingerprint scanner could make next generation iPhones significantly more secure than their predecessors. This added security could create more confidence among consumers and boost adoption rates, especially among those interested in mobile payments.

Apple to be more flexible with iPhone sales restrictions

Apple is also expected to relax the restrictions it has on iPhone sales, which will allow its partners to exhibit more flexibility in the device market. This may help Apple compete more effectively against other companies, such as Samsung, when it comes to mobile technology. Better security features may help Apple’s partners market the iPhone 5S to corporate customers — a market that has been held firmly by BlackBerry for several years.

Mobile payments may be in Apple’s future

Apple has been slow to warm to the concept of mobile payments in the past. Security concerns had caused the company to distance itself from NFC technology, which forms the backbone of most mobile payments platforms. Apple has been looking for an alternative to NFC and some rumors suggest that the company is developing its own mobile payments system for future iterations of its smartphones and tablets.

The firm has released its data indicating that the rate in the United States broke the 60 percent mark last quarter.

comScore just released its latest technology news data on Friday, which has identified the latest penetration and other trends in the mobile world, using data as recent as the end of July.

As of the close of July 2013, there was a considerable growth in smartphone popularity in the U.S.

The latest mobile technology news trends up until the last quarter have shown that the penetration rate of smartphones in the United States has now broken the 60 percent mark. The details of the report from comScore showed that the leading manufacturer of smartphones in the U.S. is still Apple.

The technology news data showed that Apple is maintaining a hold of 40 percent OEM market share.

At the same time, while Apple may be the single smartphone device manufacturer leading the way, it is Android that is making the technology news as the most popular smartphone platform, not Apple’s proprietary iOS. Android’s lead is considerable, as it holds an estimated 52 percent of the platform market share.

As a result of this, it didn’t come as a surprise to very many people that Google Sites were once again the leaders in that category of technology news, last quarter, as they have in the previous quarters.

The comScore report stated that “Google Sites ranked as the top web property on smartphones, reaching 92.6 percent of the mobile media audience (mobile browsing and app usage).” Their technology news went on to say that this was “followed by Facebook (86.3 percent), Yahoo! Sites (81.7 percent) and Amazon Sites (66.8 percent).”

When all was said and done, the comScore data estimated that during the surveyed period, there were 143.3 million people in the United States who owned smartphones. The estimated penetration rate which is now believed to be greater than 60 percent would indicate that there has been an increase of a considerable 3 percent since April 2013. This clearly indicates that these devices are making rapid headway within the United States, and that the growth will continue.