NFC-Ready POS Terminals Easier to Find; 16 Million Ship in 2016

If it seems like it’s a little easier to use a mobile payments this year than it was last year, there’s a good reason: it probably is.

The numbers of near-field communications (NFC) ready point of sale (POS) terminals is on the rise, clearing the 16 million shipped mark by the end of this year, according to a new report from Berg Insight.

Those numbers are worldwide, of course, so no one place got the benefit of all these extra terminals. Still, some places got more benefit than others; the European Union and North America saw the highest attach rates for NFC terminals, almost tied at 93 and 92 percent respectively.

Of course, these usual suspects were scarcely alone, as countries like Brazil, China and Turkey ratcheted up their attach rates, driving plenty of interest in the technology.

As a result, POS terminals with NFC capability represented roughly three in every five terminals shipped, a clear majority that proves this technology has a lot of interest.

With Berg Insight projecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.9 percent worldwide, it’s clear that this technology is catching on.

Oddly, not all of the technology is; while NFC-capable POS terminals are going out and hitting retailers, not all of these are activating technology for contactless payments.

This is changing, and in mid-2016 alone, Berg Insight figured 15 million such terminals were taking one of the major contactless payment systems—MasterCard PayPass, UnionPay QuickPass or Visa payWave—worldwide.

Basically, it’s the standard story of a young technology, by the look of it. It’s growing, but not at a particularly rapid pace. Some early adopters are stepping in and fueling growth, and the remainder of the market seems to be starting to sense that, if it doesn’t pick things up, it’s going to be left in its competition’s wake.

Thus we’re seeing ordering pick up and more units get installed, and we’ll likely see a continuing upward track for some time to come.

Mobile payments may take a while to fully catch on, but the good news is that we’re already seeing gains, and we’ll likely see these gains for some time to come.