Tag: mobile wallet

Mobile payments battle is heating up between Samsung and Apple

| April 4, 2013

Mobile Payments Samsung vs. AppleFormerly 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”.

Mobile payments bar may have been raised by Microsoft

| March 18, 2013

Microsoft Mobile PaymentsInformation about a new system on the Windows Phone platform has just been released involving Zero-Effort.

Microsoft has just released a considerable amount of detail regarding its new system for mobile payments that could considerable improve the appeal of its Windows Phone platform, as it will give smartphone users the ability to make a purchase without any effort at all.

This will allow consumers to buy products or services without ever needing to make a move.

Many of the smartphone manufacturers and other internet giants are taking sizeable steps into the mobile payments ecosystem, such as the payWave from Visa on the Samsung Galaxy 4, and the new Google Wallet making its way through its pilot period in two American cities for several months.

While many of the big players are focusing on NFC technology for mobile payments, Microsoft has looked elsewhere.

Microsoft’s mobile payments strategy was an exploration of how a consumer could make a purchase without having to mess around with the handset at a point of sale. It has labeled the style a “Zero-Effort Payment” (ZEP).

Microsoft Research representative, Sefan Saroiu, one of the team members who was a part of the development of the ZEP mobile payments, explained that this system would give merchants the ability to provide their customers with a more personalized service. For instance, they would be able to provide frequent shopper discounts without the need for the customer to carry a membership or loyalty card.

This mobile payments system functions through the integration of Bluetooth technology, in combination with face recognition technology that is worked right into its gaming system, called Kinect. When a user who is signed up for the service enters a participating store, it is detected by the Bluetooth system. When a customer is ready to pay, the face recognition system identifies him or her.

The Bluetooth system is able to determine that the participating customer has actually entered a store, but it is the face recognition that takes it a step further by identifying the unique individual customer who is at the checkout counter. That said, while the face recognition technology is not accurate enough to provide a completely precise recognition, when combined with the Bluetooth technology, it is capable of narrowing down the individual’s potential identity very tightly.