New Delhi: Worldwide,
141.1 million people will use mobile phones as the preferred means
of paying their dues this year against 102.1 million in 2010, a
study by research and advisory firm Gartner said Thursday.
This is a 38.2 percent increase from last year, the study said.
According to the study, the worldwide mobile payment volume would
be $86.1 billion, up 75.9 percent from $48.9 billion in 2010.
However, despite these strong growth projections, the study
pointed out that the growth of the mobile payment market is slower
than expected.
"In developing markets, despite favourable conditions for mobile
payment, growth is not as strong as was anticipated. Many service
providers are yet to adapt their strategies to local requirements,
and success models from Kenya and the Philippines are unlikely to
be translated to other markets," said Gartner research director
Sandy Shen.
"While developing markets have favourable conditions for mobile
payments, such as high penetration of mobile devices and low
banking penetration, this is no guarantee of success, unless
service providers adapt their strategies to local market
requirements," she added.
The study said that in developed markets, companies are trumpeting
the prospects of Near Field Communication (NFC) without realizing
the complexity of the service model.
NFC technology allows customers to quickly purchase products and
transfer secure information by touch devices.
"We believe mass market adoption of NFC payments is at least four
years away," Shen added. "The biggest hurdle is the need to change
user behaviour by convincing consumers to pay with mobile phones
instead of cash and cards."
The study highlighted that short message service (SMS) and
unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) will remain the
dominant access technologies in developing markets due to the
constraints of mobile phones.
USSD technology is used to communicate with the service provider's
computers in Global System for Mobile communication (GSM). It can
be used for internet browsing, mobile-money and location-based
content services.
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), a mobile-enabled browsing
platform, will remain the preferred mobile access technology in
developed markets, where mobile internet is commonly available and
activated on the phone.
Mobile application downloads and mobile commerce are the main
drivers of WAP payments, and WAP will account for almost 90
percent of all mobile transactions in North America and about 70
percent in western Europe in 2011, the study said.
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