Tag: mobile payments

Mobile commerce is making strong progress

The mobile commerce market is strong and growing at a rapid pace, according to a new report from Mobile Commerce World and InfortmationWeek. The report, titled “Mobile Commerce: State of the Market,” highlights the trends that exist in this burgeoning industry that are contributing to the growth it is experiencing. Of these trends, the “bring your own device” (BYOD) phenomenon is very prominent. This trend accounts for consumers bringing their mobile devices to stores and other locations in order to participate in mobile commerce or shop for products online using their smartphones are tablets.

Companies promote mobile commerce applications internally

The report shows that approximately 41% of executives from large companies polled by InformationWeek have deployed mobile commerce applications internally, encouraging employments to make mobile payments for products they are interested in. Approximately 29% of companies have limited deployment of such applications. Companies are also promoting websites optimized for use on mobile devices over traditional websites that can be viewed from a PC or laptop.

Cloud-based payments may be adequate replacement for NFC solutions

The report also highlights the growing popularity of cloud-based mobile commerce. Mobile commerce applications that are connected to a cloud network are considered more accessible than applications and platforms that rely on NFC technology. While NFC has long been a staple for mobile commerce, its availability is somewhat low, making mobile commerce more exclusive and less available to a wide range of consumers. The report shows that NFC offers numerous benefits to the world of mobile commerce and cloud-based solutions may not serve as adequate replacements for the technology, only alternatives.

Mobile banking becoming more popular

Beyond payments, other forms of mobile commerce as also gaining traction, namely mobile banking. Consumers are becoming more apt to use their mobile devices to manage their bank accounts and finances. Research shows that approximately 46% of U.S. bank holders use their smartphones or tablets to access and manage their accounts.

Formerly loyal customers are switching brands with each new service and product unveiling.

As the device battle rages on between Apple and Samsung, the mobile payments market is becoming a central battleground for the device manufacturers, as they pull out all the stops to draw consumers to not only their iPhones and Galaxies, but to their smartphone wallets, too.

Though iPhones are generally considered the industry head, it is Samsung that is leading the way.

The Korean electronics company features a broad range of Galaxy devices, available at different price points. This has made it the global leader with a recently reported market share of 29 percent in the 2012 fourth quarter. This is a massive increase over 2010’s market share, which was 8 percent. Apple is holding steady with a market share of 21.8 percent as of the same period of time.

As the two companies battle over device sales, mobile payments have also become an area for competition.

At the moment, these two companies appear to be each others’ greatest competitive threat both in device sales and mobile payments use. The primary battle is to be able to keep up with the latest in innovation, or it will be very easy to fall behind. This has also involved a number of attacks from within the companies.

For instance, on the day before the Samsung Galaxy 4S was unveiled, Phil Schiller, the chief marketing officer at Apple, gave one of his very rare interviews to the media, in which he openly criticized the “fragmented” software at Android, and on the Samsung devices, themselves.

This type of battle is expected to become even more fierce, say analysts, as the saturation point of the smartphone marketplace, and now the mobile payments market, approaches. This will mean that the growth of the companies will be driven primarily by stealing customers from one another, as opposed to trying to find customers that have not yet been reached.

That said, as much as Apple can criticize, author Clyde Prestowitz (of “Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East” fame), pointed out that in both device sales and mobile payments, “Samsung is very dangerous for Apple”.