Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Contactless grasp weaker than expected
In Contactless Commerce Forecasts, a report issued in January 2008, London-based ABIresearch indicated contactless payments grew by 15% worldwide in 2007, but deployment of the technology was not as crisp as expected.
Previously, forecasts for total near field communications (NFC) device shipments were 1.1 million for 2007 and 9.81 million for 2008. The revised forecasts are 0.65 million and 6.52 million, respectively.
However, ABI noted that given the "strength and interest among carriers around the world for NFC, our long-term forecasts remain unchanged." ABI now values the market at $200 million and anticipates it will reach more than $820 million by 2013.
Growth in demand for contactless over the next five years will be driven largely by an increase in contactless payment cards and mobile handsets. Also, contactless technology made inroads into public transportation systems in 2007, and this is expected to continue, according to ABI.
A contactless rollout in London, which began in the second half of 2007 and integrates with the established EMV (Europay, Mastercard and Visa) smartcard payment system, is expected to be the bellwether for contactless technology in Europe.
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