In its latest report, ABI Research is looking at prospects of NFC-based mobile payments, forecasting their rise from $4 billion in 2012 to $191 billion in 2017, breaking the $100 billion mark in 2016.
According to the research company, the convergence between payment types — proximity, P2P and online — stored on a single NFC handset will be the initial trigger driving market convergence across a host of other markets, including ticketing, retail, loyalty, and access control. However, the market convergence is not quite ready for mass commercial roll out, but the potential value add that NFC brings has been identified. Smart card and IC vendors, device OEMs, MNOs, partnering service providers and payments networks are all set to benefit if everything goes as planned.
ABI believes that transportation and ticketing will be the first market to benefit from convergence, with 26% of all NFC handsets forecast to house a contactless ticketing application in 2017. Transport authorities will have the ability to offer additional added value services, including route planners, delay bulletins, time tables, as well as retail and loyalty, or advertising applications offering own brand or partnering/local business a platform to offer additional solutions to generate new revenue streams…
As usual, additional details about the report and research services are available from ABI’s website.