M-Commerce Not Paying Off Yet

Predictions of mobile commerce are all over the place, not least because it depends on what you define as m-commerce (buying mobile content, or using the mobile phone as a payment mechanism, or both and other things as well?). E-Commerce Times tries to get a handle on the industry — the good side being it’s not a fluff piece. Air2Web CTO Dale Gonzalez suggests that “the reality is probably very little money is getting made” and said that most people consider India, China and Latin American countries like Mexico and Venezuela are budding hot spots, which is something I agree with. Japan is more matured — it’s gone way past budding. Japan is also cited as being ahead of other regions as the industry is working towards a common technology standard, as opposed to multiple standards and technologies competing and hampering the development of the industry.

There’s a quote from Morgan Stanley I disagree with: “The U.S. alone has an 8-to-1 ratio of mobile to PC users”…it may have an 8-to-1 ratio of mobile phones to PCs, but many people share computers at home and I suspect the proportion of PC users is a lot higher. To be fair to Morgan Stanley they are being referenced, and it could be a misquote.

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