Tag: mobile commerce report

Chinese mobile commerce is showing strong growth

Mobile commerce has gained a great deal of momentum in China recently. Consumers throughout the country are beginning to embrace mobile technology and smartphones and tablets are beginning to play a major role in the lives of many people. As mobile devices become more important to consumers, they are beginning to purchase products using these devices rather than shop in physical stores. A new report from the Development Research Center of the State Council, suggests that mobile payments have taken hold with many Chinese consumers.

Report highlights the growing popularity of mobile payments

According to the report, mobile payments are expected to reach $130.4 billion by the end of the year, more than five times the payment volume recorded from mobile devices throughout China in 2012. The report suggests that consumers throughout the country are showing favor for mobile commerce because of the convenience it brings to the shopping experience. Businesses are also powering the adoption of mobile commerce among consumers by offering shoppers special discounts for purchases that they make from mobile devices.

Alipay accounts for a third of all mobile payments in China

During the “Double Elevens” event, which is similar to Cyber Monday in the U.S. and elsewhere, mobile payments through Alipay, the country’s most prominent mobile commerce platform, reached more than $870 million in transactions. Alipay accounted for one third of all mobile payments made in China, an 800% increase over the mobile payments it accounted for in 2012.

Internet access is exposing more people to mobile commerce

As the mobile Internet becomes more accessible to a wider range of consumers, the growth of mobile commerce throughout China is expected to accelerate. Several Chinese technology firms have taken a strong interest in mobile commerce due to the economic promise it represents. Popular applications like Wechat are beginning to receive mobile commerce features, turning them into somewhat impromptu mobile payments platforms and further increasing the exposure that consumers are experiencing in regards to mobile commerce.

This is a reflection of the increasing penetration of smartphones in the country, which is now at 60 percent.

As smartphone penetration in France is now estimated to have reached 60 percent, a rapidly growing number of people in the country are turning to mobile commerce as a part of their regular shopping activities.

This, according to a recent report from comScore, which indicated that since Q1, there are now 700,000 more smartphones.

With such as growing population of people who now have smartphones, it means that there is also a growing number of consumers who have the technology that they require to take part in mobile commerce. According to the comScore data, that is exactly what a tremendous number of French customers feel, as well. Merchants are reaching out to consumers over that channel, and those shoppers are often listening.

There are now 10 million consumers in France that use mobile commerce while in-store.

The comScore data indicated that while inside a retail store, many consumers are taking out their smartphones and are using mobile commerce behaviors to help them to make their decisions. For example, approximately 8.5 million people would phone or text a friend or family member in order to ask questions regarding a product that they are considering. Another 9.3 million people took pictures of items that they were thinking about and among them, 5.8 million sent them to family or friends.

Another 3.4 million consumers used barcodes to help them with their mobile commerce investigations, by using their devices to scan QR codes, for example, to learn more about a product or a brand.

It has been predicted that as the adoption of smartphones continues to expand, it could also reach the point that adoption of mobile commerce will move beyond that which is seen in other countries, such as the United States. This is because the daily routine of the average person in France includes a larger amount of shopping (such as for groceries) than the average American. Since the average person in the U.S. stocks up on food products only once every three weeks, there is a much lower opportunity for regular smartphone based shopping than in France, where the storage space isn’t available and groceries are purchased much more frequently.