Data Privacy Concerns Hinder Mobile Payment Adoption

E-week

People who are not planning to use their phone to make in-store holiday purchases are concerned about payment fraud, data privacy and identity theft.

Identity theft, payment fraud and data privacy concerns remain the biggest barriers to mass adoption of mobile payment services, according to an Inside Secure survey of 1,217 American consumers.

The survey revealed that 17 percent of respondents who did not make holiday purchases with their mobile phone last year, plan to use a payment service such as Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay or a proprietary service from their bank or card issuer to make the leap to mobile payments this holiday season.

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It’s Cash Over Mobile Payments This Holiday Season – And By a Wide Margin

The Street

Chances are you’ll be spending about $805 this holiday season, according to the National Retail Federation.

But chances are high you won’t be using mobile apps to pay for presents and party favors.

According to Bankrate.com, mobile payments just aren’t catching on with U.S. consumers of age groups. “Just 14% of U.S. adults who use a smartphone or a similar handheld device plan to use services such as Apple Pay or Android Pay even once this holiday shopping season, including 19% of Millennials,” Bankrate states. “Among those who don’t plan to make mobile payments, the top reasons were ‘not secure enough’ (36%) and ‘other payment methods are more convenient’ (31%).”

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Mobile is the gateway for virtual reality becoming a $15.9B industry by 2019

Venture Beat

With virtual reality now becoming an actual thing with the launch of theSamsung Gear VR and the Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR in the wings ready to launch, analyst SuperData thinks the future for headset manufacturers is looking really green.

How green? According to a report on SuperData’s website, our current environment of mobile and experimental virtual reality could eventually lead to the market pulling in $15.9 billion in combined hardware sales by 2019. This number comes at the end of a projected rise in sales that starts this year at $660.5 million, to $5.1 billion in 2016, to $8.8 billion in 2017, and $12.2 billion in 2018.

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Mobile subscribers in India to cross 500 million by year end: Report

Times Of India

India is set to have more than half a billion (500 million) unique mobile subscribers by the end of the year, thanks to affordable devices, easy tariff and digital literacy drives, a study by GSMA said on Thursday.

The report, “The Mobile Economy: India 2015”, said that 13% of the world’s mobile subscribers lived in India. The subscriber growth was forecast to outperform the regional and global averages over the coming years.

India was positioning itself as the world’s second-largest mobile market after China.

“India is a unique mobile market and one where the mobile ecosystem is playing a hugely influential role in transforming the lives of its citizens, and driving economic growth,” said Alex Sinclair, acting director general and chief technology officer at the GSMA.

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Apple Watch owners use it to check the time, and not much else

Business Insider

Apple Watch owners check their wrists 60 to 80 times a day,according to Fortune. The figures come from research firm Wristly, which tracks smartwatch usage.

A breakdown in usage, provided by Mobile Life Centre, shows that the majority of Watch interactions — 20% — come from time checking, followed by notifications (17%), and workout timing (4%). Apple Watch users only read one or two emails on the device per month, according to the data.

Apple markets its Watch as a time-saving devices which can be used to order an Uber, pay for an item, or check a flight time without using your phone, but it would seem that the majority of owners use it to check the time and notifications rather than using apps.

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Zimbabwe: Mobile Money Transfers Up 30 Percent to U.S $512 Million

All Africa

ZIMBABWE’s telecoms regulator says mobile money transfers have grown nearly 30 percent to US$512 million in the three months to September while revenue in the sector dropped three percent.

The country has three mobile operators – Econet Wireless, Telecel and NetOne which all run mobile money transfer services.

In a quarterly report, the Postal and Telecommunications Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) said the number of mobile money subscribers had increased by 7,7 percent to 6,2 million compared to 5,8 million recorded in the first quarter.

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Mastercard Offers Free Tube Travel to Apple Pay Users

Mobile Marketing Magazine

MasterCard has launched a promotion offering Apple Pay users free travel on London’s transport network on ‘Fare Free Mondays’.

The promotion, which launched yesterday and will run every Monday until 14 December, offers a refund of up to £27.90 for any MasterCard customers paying for their transport contactlessly via Apple Pay.

“The move by TfL last year to accept contactless cards and devices on London Underground has been a phenomenal catalyst to the growth in contactless payments across the UK,” said Mark Barnett, president of MasterCard UK and Ireland. “Now that Apple Pay has arrived we want to encourage travellers on London’s transport network to try it out and give them another convenient option to pay for their travel.”

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Mobile App Users Reluctant to Share Location

eMarketer

Privacy and security are critical to mobile users, most of whom have some understanding of how revealing their mobile data—including location—can be to advertisers, publishers, governments and other internet users. And for many, that means not using location services at all, potentially diminishing their mobile experiences.

According to research from mobile location services provider Skyhook Wireless, US mobile app users are more likely to turn on location services for weather apps than for any other category—but even then, when the utility of location-sharing is obvious, 35% of app users refuse to do so.

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Mobile sector to account for 8.2 per cent of Indian GDP by 2020: GSMA

Economic Times

Indian mobile services sector contribution towards national GDP is estimated to reach 8.2 per cent or Rs 14 lakh crore by 2020, says a study by global telecom industry GSMA.

As per The Mobile Economy: India 2015 report, the industry accounted for 6.1 per cent of India’s GDP in 2014 with a total contribution of Rs 7.7 lakh crore to the economy.

“This contribution is forecast to almost double to Rs 14 lakh crore by 2020, which would represent 8.2 per cent of the projected GDP by that point,” GSMA Head of Asia Alasdair Grant told PTI while sharing details of the report.

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