Mobile Payments: A Guide to the Growing Market in Your Pocket

• Tweet
• Share
• Post

Stay on Top of Enterprise Technology Trends

Get updates impacting your industry from our GigaOm Research Community

Cell phones represent the killer combination of their owner’s identity, presence and wallet — and they are nearly ubiquitous, with an estimated five billion global active subscriptions predicted before the end of 2010. As such, using phones to pay for things provides a huge growth opportunity in the mobile market. Generator Research recently predicted that the worldwide market for mobile payments would grow to $633.4 billion by 2014, up from $68.7 billion in 2009.
So, after many years of promise, mobile payments are finally finding their stride — but it’s not just one stride. In writing about the space, I admit I’ve been confused many times by what people actually mean when they say “mobile payments.” Is it when people buy things on their phone? Within a mobile application? Using their phone number? Using their physical handset? When they pay their bills from their phone? When they split a tab via text message?

The answer is yes — in fact, all of these are rapidly growing businesses. In the hopes that I could help other people more easily understand the mobile payments space, I spent some time talking to many of the players about their business. I then wrote a longer post for GigaOM Pro, our subscription research service, that lays out the different subsets, challenges and opportunities they face.

Companies mentioned in this feature include Allopass, Apple, AT&T, Bling Nation, Boku, ClairMail, Danal, Facebook, FeliCa Networks, Firethorn, Globe, mFoundry, Mopay, M-PESA, O2 Money, Oi Paggo, Obopay, Smart, Square, PayPal, Venmo, Verizon, Visa, ViVOtech and Zong. I hope you’ll check it out!