Mobile Commerce: Dealing with the Devil in the Details

Celent: Mobile phones will become a more prominent vehicle for low value payments on a global basis, with global mobile commerce revenues surpassing US$24 billion in 2006 and $55 billion by 2008.

Mobile carriers and banks are now coming together based on the same factors that have kept them apart in the past—mobile adoption, technology standards, changing industry dynamics, and new business interests. This will be the year of dealing with all the little devils in the details that have come as a result of new, disruptive business models that occur when a mobile medium is used for commerce. In the US, mobile commerce will no longer be just about digital content. The mobile phone will become a wallet, allowing users to purchase products with their phone. The technology is already well on its way in Asia , the mobile wallet will debut in the US in 2007.

Now, with the US mobile commerce market alone approaching $3 billion in the coming year, content providers, carriers, and handset makers are coming to terms with two unique and disruptive aspects associated with mobile commerce:

• Unlike a desktop computer, the mobile device is independent of time and place.

• Portability and accessibility can transform the mobile device into a wallet that can be accepted at the physical point of sale.

xcommerce. Carriers, card associations, device manufacturers, and banks are trying to strike the right economic balance that will allow mobile phones to become a payment form factor at the digital as well as the physical point of sale. In the North American and Europe an markets, telcos and banks may finally become bedfellows with the help of third party technology platforms agnostic to all parties,. The advent of near field communications technology standards will certainly contribute to the growth of low value payments through mobile phones and expand the mobile commerce market for all parties.

Mobile Commerce: Dealing with the Devil in the Details Publ 20060214