"NFC" articles

Smart watch adoption is picking up in the United States. According to Parks Associates' most recent survey data, as of 2017 14% of U.S. broadband households own at least one smart watch. Consumer-reported purchase intention for smart watches has also more than doubled year-over-year, ahead of the holiday shopping season. 2017 is an important year for the U.S. smart watch market. Traditional fitness wearable brands Fitbit and Garmin have announced their first "true" smart...

According to Parks Associates’ consumer data, about 9% of Apple smartphone users have used Apple Pay, 1  and only about 3% use it regularly. 2 2015 was “the year of Apple Pay” according to Tim Cook. Apple’s failing to gain adoption, right? 3 No. Apple is focused on gaining merchant adoption before gaining consumer adoption. Here’s evidence that Apple’s focus for Apple Pay is not on consumer uptake: Apple’s iPhone 6, the first Apple phone that allows consumers...

This morning, activist investor Carl Icahn issued an open letter to Apple, urging the technology innovator to buyback more shares. As an industry analyst, I am more interested in Mr. Icahn’s rationales and assumptions about Apple’s future growth, and there are plenty in that open letter. We agree with Mr. Icahn on many fronts but also disagree with him on several other areas. Here is a quick summary of how I dissect his arguments. What we agree with Mr. Icahn:...

Alongside the headline-grabbing Apple Watch and the new, improved, and enlarged iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, comes the most eagerly-awaited news for those in the payments and retail space: Apple Pay. Apple has sat aside and watched while major competitors got a several-years-long jump on the mobile payments marketplace, only to founder and generate very little traction. As is its custom, Apple strategically assembled all necessary pieces of its planned product first and then waited for...

Two major events occurred in September 2013 affecting the mobile payments ecosystem-Google's expansion of its Wallet app to non-NFC smartphone users and Apple's reveal of the iPhones 5S and 5C. Both of these events appeared to move the vision of a mobile payments future based on NFC (near field communication) further from reality. However, when examined more closely, these moves align with each company's near-term strategies, while NFC still has several key advantages that will keep...

Two major events occurred in September affecting the mobile payments ecosystem—Apple’s recent iPhone 5S and 5C reveal, and Google’s expansion of its Wallet app to non-NFC smartphone users. Both of these events appeared to move the vision of a mobile payments future based on NFC further from reality. Did they? Is Google Abandoning NFC? Google launched an NFC-based payment app, Google Wallet, back in September 2011. Even after two years on market, however, Parks...

Siemens Communications, Media and Technology (CMT) will be launching its new walletXpress mobile payment platform, which offers new services and products in the area of multimedia, ticketing, energy and healthcare, at the upcoming Mobile Money Global . The annual conference and exhibition is taking place in Dubai from 1-2 November and gathers the who’s who in the mobile money industry. Siemens will demonstrate the walletXpress platform for the unbanked and developing countries...