ResearchAndMarkets Offers Look at the Next Five Years in Mobile Payments

December 19, 2023         By: Steven Anderson

If there’s one thing we can say about this year in mobile payments, it’s that it was pretty big. Really, there was a lot going on across all sectors, from payment cards to mobile wallets to cryptocurrency. Now, ResearchAndMarkets has recently issued a new report about the near-term future of the mobile payments market, and those hoping to see this field clear the trillion mark will likely not be disappointed, realizing their dream in the very near future.

As of 2017, the report notes, the mobile payments market stood at around $718.49 billion. That’s a feat in its own right, but by 2023, that number is now expected to approach $3 trillion, hitting $2.73 trillion in total. That’s a compound annual growth rate of 24.5 percent over the forecast period, and a truly staggering total.

What are the biggest drivers behind this staggering projected gain? One of the biggest is the terrific growth projected for the e-commerce front in that same time frame. Just in 2017, e-commerce realized $1.84 trillion worldwide, and a hefty chunk of that comes from mobile devices. With mobile devices leading the way in e-commerce, it stands to reason that mobile payments will be a major part of the picture.

That’s not the only driver, however; the growth of the Asia-Pacific market—already huge this year—will likely only grow into the future. India’s demonetization efforts turned mobile payments into one of a few viable alternatives for commerce in the country, and China continues to ramp up its own efforts, even if it’s been seen muzzling some of the biggest mobile payments providers in the country.

The combination of increasing uses for mobile payments and more places getting in on the action suggests big gains ahead. While getting mobile payments into the mainstream in some places has proven a challenge, we’ve already seen some cases that proved successful, and we even have some worthwhile paths for the future, like adding more reward program benefits to mobile payments.

The future ahead looks pretty bright for mobile payments, if for no other reason than we’ve already seen them start to take off. While we may not hit the $3 trillion mark in six years or so, we will have certainly given it our best shot.