Mobile payment users are expected to make up 2.1 percent of all mobile users this year, driven by strong demand in developing markets.
Gartner’s research showed that the Asia-Pacific region is forecast to exceed 62.8 million users in 2010, representing 2.6 percent of all mobile users.
In Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), mobile payment users will reach 27.1 million, representing 2.1 percent of all mobile users.
"We continue to see strong growth in developing markets in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa for mobile payment, while adoption in North America and Western Europe lags behind due to the plentiful choices of payment instruments that consumers have," research director at Gartner Sandy Shen said.
"Developing markets have found the right formula for mobile money services- functions that users want and an ecosystem that can sustain the service."
Demand for mobile payment in developing markets is being driven by the unbanked and underbanked populations that do not have ready access to the banking infrastructure or PC, positioning mobile as the natural choice of access platform, Gartner’s research indicated.
In North America, the numbers of mobile payment users are expected to reach 3.5 million, or 1.1 percent of all mobile users in the region.
Shen warned that in contrast to the developing world, a universal mobile payments ‘answer’ for developed markets remained elusive, and was likely to take a different format from offerings in the Asia Pacific.
"In developed nations the service needs to be built on top of the existing payment behavior and infrastructure so that users can choose any channel- retail, phone, online or mobile- that suits their context at the moment of payment."
Source: Gartner Inc
