IDC: Worldwide Mobile Payments to Reach $1 Trillion in 2017
The value of mobile payments worldwide is expected to increase 124 percent to $1 trillion in 2017, up from this year’s less than $500 billion, according to analyst house International Data Corporation (IDC).
The lion’s share of this growth will come from Asia-Pacific markets, where mobile commerce transactions with remote payments will continue to take off. Mature Asian markets will also remain as leaders in the card payment space.
Shiv Putcha, associate research director at IDC Asia/Pacific, commented, “Smartphone adoption has grown much more rapidly than general banking and card adoption in the Asia/Pacific region. Recent focus on financial inclusion policies in various countries has given a boost to connecting the unbanked. This phenomenon, coupled with the innovation of semi-closed wallet schemes linked to bank accounts, has given a major boost to mobile payments in Asia-Pacific.”
Meanwhile, in the UK, mobile phones will become the primary means for paying for goods and services and managing accounts in the next five years thanks to widespread mobile adoption along with improvements on biometric security and regulatory initiatives.
This is according to a report released by Consult Hyperion on behalf of Payments UK.
A new era of wearable payments from more affordable smartwatches and other innovations will also rise in the next decade with further refinements on technologies, the report added.