Wed, 12/12/2012 – 12:54 by Last week eBay
reported that it will realize “more than $10 billion in mobile volume for the year from its mobile apps and PayPal expects to transact more than $10 billion in mobile payment volume.” Those are big numbers. If we visit some of the mobile payments forecasts the numbers get much bigger.
Yet consumer surveys in the US and elsewhere reveal consumer ambivalence and even indifference to mobile payments. It does vary by age however, with younger users indicating greater interest than older people.
A survey we fielded in August (n=926 US adults) found that roughly 29% of respondents had varying degrees of interest, whereas 71% were “not at all interested” in mobile payments.
“How interested are you in using your mobile phone to pay for things as a replacement for cash or your credit cards?”- I’m not at all interested: 71.3%
- I have limited interest: 14.8%
- I’m fairly interested: 7.2%
- I’m extremely interested: 6.8%
In our survey people under 45 years of age were considerably more interested than people who were older. A new survey from Harris Interactive is more bullish on the outlook for mobile payments however, with smartphone owners reflecting much greater interest in mobile payments:
“How interested are you in being able to use your smartphone to process in-person payments via tapping a special receiver, rather than using cash or payment cards?” - Very interested in using my smartphone instead of cash or cards: 8%
- Somewhat interested in using my smartphone instead of cash or cards: 19%
- Not very interested in using my smartphone instead of cash or cards: 12%
- Not at all interested in using my smartphone instead of cash or cards: 43%
In other words 27% were “Very” or “Somewhat Interested” while 57% were “Not Very” or “Not at All Interested.” This was the full sample population. The following were the smartphone-only responses:
- Very interested in using my smartphone instead of cash or cards: 16%
- Somewhat interested in using my smartphone instead of cash or cards: 28%
- Not very interested in using my smartphone instead of cash or cards: 16%
- Not at all interested in using my smartphone instead of cash or cards: 30%
Thus “Very” or “Somewhat Interested” came out to be 44%, while “Not Very” or “Not at All Interested” was 47%. Quite a bit more interest accordingly.
Smartphone owners in the 18-47 age range were most interested in mobile payments according to the Harris survey. In addition, 38% of smartphone owners saw mobile payments replacing card-based transactions “for a majority of purchases” within five years.
