Big Growth Ahead for the Global Mobile Payment Technology Market

While we often think about the customer-facing aspects of mobile payments technology, particularly the mobile wallet and other applications, we don’t think so much about the underlying technology involved in these operations. New word from QYReports recently emerged, setting a target rate for growth in the global mobile payments technology market. If the numbers pan out as expected, look for some very big growth to come.

The QYReports study projects a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 21 percent between now and 2021. Driving this growth will be mobile payments made via short messaging service (SMS) protocol, though the growth of near-field communications (NFC) operations will also provide a major share of the market.

That’s just for starters, though, as the QYReports study identified several reasons for overall growth in the sector. These included such things as already massive and only increasing smartphone penetration, the overall growth of mobile commerce (which lends itself well to mobile payments), an increasingly mobile lifestyle, and the need for payments services that are both quick and without trouble for the user, like cash only strictly online.

With major global players from Microsoft to Google and Apple and beyond all in play in this market, it’s not surprising to see such potential gains afoot. We’ve seen mobile take off in a fairly short space, and thanks to an increasing number of applications—we just heard about how Mastercard is trying to link mobile payments and a credit score together—we’re likely to hear more of them in the short term.

Increasing numbers of applications, coupled with a global economy that at least seems to be on the mend bringing more people looking to spend with it, does suggest growth ahead for the global mobile payments technology market. Such a market is likely to encourage other firms to try and get in on the action, which means more competition for users, and a better overall picture for us as well.