Over 50 Million Consumers to Pay for Goods and Services Via Mobile Phone by 2011

New forecasts from Juniper Research show that around 52 million consumers will adopt new mobile technologies such as NFC (Near Field Communication) and other physical mobile payment methods to pay for everyday goods and services by 2011. This will help drive the physical mobile payments market to $11.5 billion by the same year.

NFC and other physical mobile payments methods will begin to offer consumers a viable alternative both to cash, credit and debit cards supporting their increasingly mobile lifestyles.

The new Juniper Research study found that by 2011, around 12% of the total mobile phones in circulation will offer support for contactless payment, specifically NFC - equating to nearly 470 million NFC-enabled handsets worldwide, thereby providing a significant marketplace for retailers to offer goods via mPayment applications.

Other findings from the report include:

• Mobile payment applications and services are already available in most regions in a variety of formats where they are being adopted in either a trial or commercial mode with favourable user feedback.
• Industry players (including retailers, handset vendors and the financial community) in the Far East and the US are seen as particularly receptive to the idea of using RFID or NFC to facilitate mobile payments for physical goods and services.
• Members of the mobile payments value chain must develop a mutually satisfactory, robust business model, guaranteeing revenue to all parties.

Posted to the site on 30th October 2007