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Research Briefings

Mobile payments: forecasts, technologies and opportunities

Summary:

Mobile payments — payments initiated by a phone for a transaction at a physical point of sale or online — will total over $750 billion worldwide by 2015, and many predict they will soon begin to replace a typical credit card transaction. This report analyzes and forecasts the mobile payments industry, from its current technologies to the companies implementing them and the trends we can expect in the coming months. Much of the near-term growth of mobile payments will be driven by near-field communication (NFC) technology, but QR and 2D bar codes, mobile POS systems and SMS transactions are also important platforms for companies to consider when creating business models and strategies. Meanwhile, services from the likes of MasterCard, Nokia, Amazon and Google offer examples for others to follow and clues into the future of the industry. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Research in Motion, T-Mobile, Zong and Groupon. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial.

  1. Table of Contents
  2. Executive summary
  3. Introduction
  4. What are mobile payments?
    1. NFC
      1. On-device technology vendors
      2. Merchants, merchant services and POS vendors
      3. Settlement vendors and Internet players
    2. QR codes and 2D bar codes
    3. Mobile POS systems
    4. Mobile web payments
    5. SMS transactions
  5. Mobile-payments vendor profiles
    1. MasterCard Worldwide
      1. Mobile-payments offerings
      2. Competitive advantages
      3. Competitive challenges
    2. Isis
      1. Competitive advantages
      2. Competitive challenges
    3. Nokia
      1. Mobile-payments offerings
      2. Competitive advantages
      3. Competitive challenges
    4. Google
      1. Mobile-payments offerings
      2. Competitive advantages
      3. Competitive challenges
    5. Amazon
      1. Mobile-payments offerings
      2. Competitive advantages
      3. Competitive challenges
    6. Zong
      1. Competitive advantages
      2. Competitive challenges
    7. MFoundry
      1. Mobile-payments offerings
      2. Competitive advantages
      3. Competitive challenges
  6. Forecasts
  7. Industry outlook
    1. Credit card companies get disenfranchised
    2. Battle for secure element to control NFC
    3. Opportunities for merchants to leverage mobile
    4. Mobile payments creates huge revenue source for mobile ecosystem
    5. Control of the customer will be key
  8. Key takeaways
  9. Further Reading

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