Financial Applications on Cell Phones to Attract 2.2 Billion Users in the Next Five Years

Eight financial applications for mobile phones are forecasted to become part of the daily routine of nearly 2.2 billion mobile phone users worldwide over the next five years, says a new market research study released by the Insight Research Corporation. According to the market analysis study, these eight mobile financial applications will generate nearly $124 billion for application developers and for the cell phone companies providing access to these applications on their networks over the forecast period.

According to the report, the cumulative number of users subscribing independently to each of eight selected mobile financial services will more than triple during the period 2009-2014.

The study evaluated the use of mobile banking applications; mobile stock trading; mobile proximity and retail applications; mobile credit cards; mobile bar coding; mobile peer-to-peer applications; mobile gaming; and mobile gambling. The study noted that although all the applications run on the same end-user device--the mobile phone--each application comes with a unique set of factors that influence its market acceptance and market prospects. Thus each application was mapped and forecasted independently of one another.

"The World Bank is predicting that the global economy is going to shrink this year for the first time since the Second World War, and though no one can predict when the present recession will end, it is a safe bet that it will," says Insight Research president Robert Rosenberg. "Our analysis suggests that the eight cell phone financial applications covered in this study will be part of the solution. When this recession ends, the global financial system will emerge stronger and more tightly integrated, and the cell phone's new financial transaction capabilities will be a part of the foundation of that recovery," Rosenberg concluded.

Posted to the site on 20th April 2009