Mobile wallet market refers to payment services operated under financial regulation and performed through a mobile device instead of paying in cheque, cash, or credit cards. A consumer can use mobile phone to pay for range of products and services.
Mobile wallet market emerged in 2005, when the South African based MTN (the largest mobile operator in Africa), teamed up with Standard Bank (the largest banking group in Africa) to form MTN Banking. MTN Banking was the time was one of the first truly mobile banks globally. Mobile wallet market is growing at a rapid pace as mobile wallet companies are coming up with newer and more innovative ways to engage customer behavior towards a cashless form of transaction. The technologically untapped markets in developing countries provide a hub of opportunities in the mobile wallet market,
Some of the factors driving the growth of the global mobile wallet market are growth in smartphone and mobile internet users, and greater convenience and accessibility of mobile wallets. Further, the growing preference for reward and loyalty programs is expected to give a major boost to the growth of the global mobile wallet market in future.
Some of the other drivers observed in the global mobile wallet market are increased use of mobile commerce and different functionalities offered by mobile wallets, as compared to physical wallets. Whereas, the growing concerns regarding data privacy, security and lack of awareness among users, and infancy of mobile wallet technology are some of the factors hindering the growth of the global mobile wallet market.
The major companies operating in the global market of mobile wallet include PayPal Holdings Inc., AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY, Visa Inc., Google Inc., LevelUp Inc., Square Inc., MasterCard Incorporated, Apple Inc., BlackBerry Limited, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and PAYTM.
