The market for mobile payments — which includes mobile shopping, money transfers and near-field communication (NFC) transactions — will hit $670 billion globally by 2015, a significant jump from $240 billion this year, according to Juniper reserach in July 2011.
20 countries are expected to launch NFC services in the next 18 months, resulting in transactions approaching $50 billion worldwide by 2014.
According to Juniper senior analyst David Snow, digital goods, the largest segment of the mobile payment market, won’t grow as quickly as newer segments like NFC and physical goods payments over the next few years. Digital goods will more than double (and account for 40 percent of the market) by 2015, while other segments will grow almost three times as much.
A recent Forrester report estimated tha US mobile commerce will be worth $31 billion by 2016. It only looked at the US (Juniper’s figure is global), and at mobile shopping elements of mobile payments, not money transfers.
North America, Western Europe, and East Asian countries will account for 75 percent of mobile payment transactions by 2015. That’s to be expected, since all of those regions are also leading the way in smartphone penetration.
