Mobile payment transaction values to surpass $171.5bn

Mobile payment transaction values will surpass $171.5bn in 2012, a 61.9% increase from the previous year, according to Gartner.

Additionally, the analyst has predicted that the number of mobile payment users will reach 212.2m in 2012, an increase from 160.5m in 2011.

Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner, said: “We expect global mobile transaction volume and value to average 42% annual growth between 2011 and 2016, and we are forecasting a market worth $617bn with 448m users by 2016. This will bring opportunities for service and solution providers who will need to cater to the local demand patterns to customise their offerings.”

Over the next two years, the mobile payments market will experience fragmented services and solutions, said the firm. Technology providers will have to steer their solutions towards the local market who will be using different access technologies, business models and partners, and under different regulatory conditions.

Shen added: “There will be a few global players that have the scale and resources to serve large customers and the mass market whose requirements can be readily satisfied by standard solutions. However, there will always be segments that cannot be sufficiently served by the global players. The demand of these segments can only be satisfied by specialized or local players who can better understand the segment and have specific solutions to meet the unique challenges.”

SMS remains the dominant access market in developing markets due to the constraitns of mobile devices whilst in North America, Web/WAP is dominant. The analyst firm expects Web/WAP to account for about 88% of total transactions in North America and about 80% in Western Europe by 2016.

Additionally, Near Field Communication (NFC) transactions - which is experiencing growing popularity - will remain relatively low through 2015, although growth will start to pick up from 2016, predicted Gartner.

Shen said: “NFC payment involves a change in user behavior and requires collaboration among stakeholders that includes banks, mobile carriers, card networks and merchants. It takes time for both to happen, so we don't expect NFC payments to come into the mass market before 2015. In the meantime, ticketing, rather than retail payment, will drive NFC transactions.”