Micropayments Fuel M-Commerce

The global mobile commerce market excluding mobile entertainment, will become a $40bn industry by 2009, fuelled by a growth in micropayment volumes, according to a new study from Juniper Research. The purchase of tickets (such as car parking and cinema tickets) using the mobile phone, will dominate the growth in m-commerce. Mobile users have started already to show interest in ticketing particularly in Europe and Japan, while in the retail sector, initial applications are geared towards vending machines, but this will see slow growth.

Report author Marc Ambasna-Jones said:

“Mobile commerce is slowly starting to happen, driven by the demand for ringtones and games but also increasingly music downloads. Other applications too will start to emerge, such as ticketing and these are applications that mobile users can understand as they start to explore more uses for their increasingly powerful handsets.”

“The key for m-commerce growth is simplicity. Will it be easier to use than a credit card for example? Can it ever be more convenient than cash? Ultimately the success or failure of mobile commerce, either macro or micro payments, will come down to this.” Continue >>