Each week the MEF team curates mobile stories from around the world. Essential news, the latest market insight & data nuggets, the Global News Round-up offers an instant international mobile content and commerce snapshot.
Global News Stories
10 things you need to know about digital wallets
The Guardian
Barring a few changes – such as chip-and-pin technology, contactless payments – the standard mix of loyalty cards, credit and debit cards, and cash in a wallet is much the same as it was 20 years ago. But there’s a big prize waiting for the first company to convince us to ditch all our metal and plastic for something more 21st century. Here’s what you need to know about the groups jostling for position in your back pocket.
UK lenders to offer Zapp payments in banking apps
BBC
Five UK lenders are to add a mobile payment facility called Zapp to their smartphone and tablet apps. It will allow their customers to pay for goods or services in shops or online without the need for cash or a credit card.
App Monetization To Get Tougher Still, With Gartner Predicting 94.5% Of Downloads Will Be Free By 2017
Tech Crunch
The business of making money from apps is going to get tougher still, with analyst Gartner predicting that through to 2018 less than 0.01% of consumer mobile apps will be considered a financial success by their developers.
Smart Pipes or Dumb Monsters: What Can Telcos Do About Death of SMS?
Mobile Marketing
OTT messaging overtook and exceeded the number of text messages sent in the UK last year by more than 15bn. According to Deloitte estimates, the number of instant messages sent in the UK reached 160bn in 2013, growing from 57m in 2012. Meanwhile, the number of text messages sent dropped from 152bn in 2012 to 145bn in 2013.
Apple Will Refund $32.5 Million to Customers in Settlement Over In-App Purchases by Kids
Yahoo
Apple Inc will refund consumers at least $32.5 million to settle longstanding complaints that the technology company billed U.S. consumers for charges incurred by children buying mobile apps without their parents’ consent.
The Automobile As A Consumer Mobile Frontier
Tech Crunch
We don’t need no stinking branches. Two-thirds of Brits want to bank mobile
Mobile Money Revolution
A survey by business process management firm Genpact found 64 per cent of Brits want to go mobile or online to do banking. Just 29 per cent would prefer to use branches or call centre-based telephone banking. Among ‘Gen Y’ it’s just 11 per cent.
Removing omnichannel commerce friction will spur mobile payments growth: Forrester
Mobile Commerce Daily
A Forrester Research analyst at Mobile Marketer’s Mobile FirstLook: Strategy 2014 conference said mobile payments in the United States will grow more slowly than anticipated through 2018, with interest continuing to increase about 5 percent per year.
Smartphones and emerging markets: where we’re headed in 2014
Memeburn
There are few emerging market countries that are particularly mature in terms of their cellphone and smartphone usage and buying patterns (China, in particular stands out); but there is a large contingent of emerging markets who are not as mature in this regard. What are some of the factors that have held back smartphone adoption in these markets and further to that; what is being done to accelerate the adoption rates?
Global News Round-up – These articles are not written by MEF and do not represent any views of individuals, members or the organisation.
