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People will buy stuff from their smartphones
ANALYST OUTFIT Juniper has suddenly worked out that people might use their clever mobile phones to buy stuff online.
The firm has sent out people with clipboards to ask punters if they will use their smartphones to buy stuff over the Internet. It also asked people how much they might spend to buy things.
It figures that the value of digital and physical goods that people buy with their mobiles will reach $200 billion globally by 2012.
That amount is more than twice as much as this year. A digital good is something like entertainment, music and tickets, whilst physical goods are groceries, gifts and books.
According to the study, which has the catchy title "Mobile Payments for Digital and Physical Goods", if there are more secure, easy-to-use payment applications more people will be aware that they can buy stuff using their phones.
Report author Howard Wilcox said that faster mobile networks, more powerful devices and much more user friendly smartphone applications are making online payments easier and more popular.
The report warns that retailers and merchants need to communicate the costs of mobile phone transactions clearly so that people are not discouraged from buying by phone. µ
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They have been doing this for years in Japan. Indeed, there are several ways to use ones phone for buying stuff.
One can go from one end of the country to the other with nothing other than one's phone. (Unless it's an iphone, then you need a REAL phone too.)
(Although the fancy-pants iCrap and Android stuff is not actually useful for taxis, train tickets or convenience stores. It might work for plane tickets, different system.)
They're an internet appliance, of course people will buy from them.