We continue our coverage on the future of payments by sharing these fascinating statistics about the fastest growing segment of mobile payments - mobile proximity payments. Mobile proximity payments are purchases being made using a smartphone when the user is physically near the point of sales. NFC and QR codes are two examples of technologies that enable those kind of payments.
This graph is based on data from Ovum's new m-payment forecast.
This graph clearly shows how the growth of mobile proximity payment users are growing at an exponential rate. From the graph we can see that the number of users in 2014 were around 4,55 million, but in 2019 that number is expected to increase to 1,09 billion global mobile proximity payment users.
So what are the underlying forces driving this exponential growth? Ovum reports that one key factor is the increasing merchant support for NFC-technologies at point-of-sale. Another contributing factor is the adoption of host card emulation (software that provides a virtual representation of electronic cards such as transit and banking). Meanwhile, we are seeing how Samsung, Apple Pay, Google Wallet and PayPal are also fueling this growth.
A survey by Accenture from 2015 reported that 52% of North Americans are aware of mobile payments, but only 18% use them on a regular basis. The same study clearly shows that it's the Millennials and higher-income households who are leading this change, with 23% and 28% using contactless payments once a week or more. What do you think about the future of payments? Are you ready to give up your physical wallet?