Gartner has predicted a bleak future for mobile payments using near field communications (NFC), a technology that allows shoppers to pay by tapping their mobile smartphones against a payment terminal.
High-profile mobile payment services using NFC, including Google Wallet and Isis, are “struggling to gain traction” and adoption of NFC technology in all markets in 2012 has been “disappointing,” Gartner said today.
Gartner predicted that NFC would account for only 2 per cent of total worldwide mobile payments this year and only increase to 5 per cent in 2017. The growth rate of NFC will increase slightly in 2016 with a higher penetration of NFC mobile phones and contactless readers, Gartner said.
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While NFC growth may be slow, Gartner predicted total mobile transaction value worldwide to increase an average of 35 per cent each year between 2012 and 2016. The market will be worth AUD$242.4 billion with 245.2 million users in 2013 and AU$743 billion with more than 450 million users by 2017, the analyst firm said.
Gartner predicted that total transaction value in the Asia-Pacific region alone will reach AUD$76 billion in 2013 and hit $170 billion in 2016. That growth will be driven by South Korea, Singapore and India, it said.
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