The total global user base for mobile payments will increase from an estimated 689.99 million users in 2014 to 4.77 billion users in 2019, according to global analyst firm Ovum.
Of the three segments covered in the new forecast – m-commerce, person-to-person (P2P) mobile money transfers, and mobile proximity payments – m-commerce is the biggest in terms of users and transaction value.
Ovum forecasts 452.78 million global m-commerce users in 2014, rising to 2.07 billion users in 2019. The global transaction value of m-commerce will grow from $50.92bn in 2014 to $693.36bn by 2019, as shown below:
The rise of m-commerce is being driven by the widespread adoption of increasingly powerful smartphones with larger screens. Meanwhile, more and more retailers are optimizing their sites for mobile shopping.
“Smartphones have become a platform that can support the whole shopping journey, from product search and discovery, through comparisons and recommendations, to payments,” notes Eden Zoller, Principal Analyst, Consumer Services and Payments, at Ovum.
Pay-off for China with largest user base by 2019
China is the rising star of m-commerce and by 2019 will have 370.29 million m-commerce users, making it the largest m-commerce user base in the world. China is also on track to be second only to the US in terms of m-commerce transaction value, which will reach $79.36bn in China in 2019.
“Players such as Alibaba and Tencent are galvanizing the Chinese market, along with a fast-growing, more affluent, middle-class customer base and young people that are mobile-first and view smartphones as the center of their digital lives,” concludes Zoller.
