Analyst predictions come and go. We report them, but rarely do a follow up, mostly due to the fact that there are more analyst firms out there than there are gadget sites. The few that matter (Gartner, Strategy Analytics, Canalys, Juniper Research, IDC, we’re sure we’ve left out a few) make predictions so often that they leave our head spinning. The latest of such conjectures comes from the folks at Juniper, who say that 20% of all smartphones sold in 2014 will come with support for near field communication technology. That’s a huge jump from the relatively 0% of today. The only handset we can think of that comes with NFC inside is the Samsung Nexus S. We thought there would be more by now, especially since Google added support for NFC in their latest version of Android, but it’s the chipmakers to blame.
Qualcomm silicon powers roughly 60% of all Android devices, and until those guys start bundling NFC inside their hardware in much the same way that they already bundle WiFi, GPS, and 3G/2G, then you can expect near field to stay a niche for the foreseeable future. Then there’s Apple. Every week a new rumor comes out about the iPhone 5. Will it have NFC or will it not have NFC? Will it have a 4 inch screen or will it have the same 3.5 inch screen as the current generation iPhone? We’re not going to find out until the damn thing gets announced, and even that announcement date isn’t yet known. Some say June, others say September, some say it’s not even going to happen in 2011. All we know is that when Apple starts shipping something with NFC, everyone else will want to follow suite. It’s a sort of chicken and egg game.
With three out of America’s four largest operators working together to make near field payments take off, and announcing trials will begin in the middle of 2012, we’re not quite sure what to think about Juniper’s prediction. From a geek perspective we’d like them to be right. From the trajectory of today’s technological progress, we’re more than a little skeptical.