Mobile Commerce for Travel Outgrows all Other Spending Categories

Mobile payments are growing for travel more than any other vertical, and people spend more on travel than any other type of transaction.

A new study by Adyen, a global payment provider, shows that travel transactions are both more valuable and growing at a faster rate than all other transactions, with $201 in average transactions on tablets and $79 on smartphones. Retail came at a distant second, followed by tickets, gaming, and digital goods.

While the gap between travel and retail transactions was very high for tablets ($113 for retail versus $201 for travel), the gap on smartphones was much smaller ($77 vs. $79), with other transaction types not far behind.

This study confirms two trends that many in the mobile payments world have noticed.

1. Smartphone payments are often small snacks compared to the feasts of tablets and desktop PCs. While people are increasingly willing to integrate m-commerce into their shopping habits, many will migrate to a larger screen when making a bigger purchase.

2. Travel expenditure is soaring. After years and years of penny-pinched consumers facing longer work hours, less paid time off, little or no wage growth, and a sluggish economy, fatigue seems to be setting in and more people are taking vacations. At the same time, companies looking to cut costs may have finally bottomed out on parsing travel budgets, allowing business travel to expand again.

For anyone looking to target the fast-growing mobile payments sector, integrating a travel solution may not be a bad idea.