Despite the analysis from other analyst companies that resign NFC payments to a hype-driven phenomenon, ABI Research predicts that these payments will soon become not only a reality, but also a mass market-adopted behavior in the United States and Western Europe in 2016.
“Despite the lack of definitive announcements to date, MNOs and OEMs will flood some markets with NFC payment-ready smartphones in 2012 and 2013. That, along with momentum from Google Wallet and several other MNO-led initiatives, like Cityzi in France, ISIS in the US, and the yet unnamed MNO JV in the UK, builds the installed base of NFC mobile payment users to more than 16% of mobile subscribers in the U.S. and Western Europe by late 2014,” says Mark Beccue, senior analyst, mobile money.
Total dollars spent worldwide using NFC will surpass $100 billion in 2016, ABI said, a relatively small amount compared to the tens of trillions of overall annual consumer spending.
“$100 billion is a healthy amount for an emerging payment initiative,” says Beccue, “especially when you consider it will have existed for less than four years in 2016.” Business models, not technology, continue to bog down the near-term progress of NFC mobile payments, but perhaps those days are coming to a close.
“With these new business models, the opportunities are too good to pass up. MNOs, OEMs, and Google are tinkering with multiple business and partnership models and will most likely use a combination of one or more. This approach will help move the business forward,” says Beccue.
ABI Research’s new report, NFC Mobile Payments forecasts the installed base of NFC handsets, active NFC mobile payment users, and NFC mobile payments by region and selected countries. The report also presents details of evolving consumer behavior and use cases for NFC mobile payments.