Mobile commerce market to reach $74 bn by 2015: Juniper

NFC (near field communication) will facilitate mobile transactions to count $74bn by 2015, as its usage is rapidly increasing for the payment of goods in-store, and as transport tickets, says a study by Juniper Research.

The increasing use of mobile devices as a substitute to credit cards, and paper tickets is one of the fastest growing segments of the mobile commerce market. The report also states that all the segments including- money transfers, banking, payments and coupons are predicted to exhibit significant growth rates.

The report also focused on the security issues which the mobile commerce providers need to ensure, as without the trust of the users the boom in the mobile commerce market will be hindered.

''Our report demonstrates the spectacular growth we see across all segments of the mobile commerce market. Four of these segments (money transfer, physical goods, NFC and coupons) will more than treble in transaction value over the next three years, whilst digital goods, banking and tickets will still on average, double over the same period,'' said David Snow, author of the report.

Some other findings of the report include- SMS is the key to widespread mobile banking service adoption; without interoperability mobile money transfer services will struggle to gain a critical mass of users; and while mobile coupons still represent the smallest mobile commerce segment, it is reflecting the highest growth rate.