Javelin: Mobile POS Could Lead to $1.1 Trillion in New Card Payments (April 29, 2013)
The rising prevalence of mobile POS systems could result in up to $1.1 trillion in additional card payments per year and increase payment card acceptance by as many as 20 million merchants, according to a new report by Javelin Strategy & Research. Mobile POS systems like Square, PayPal Here, SpotPay and iZettle, which have become popular thanks largely to smartphone and tablet penetration, provide all of the functionality of a traditional POS terminal with the added benefits of lower hardware costs and processing fees, portability, improved user interface and a simplified application process, the report said.
And it’s not just small merchants who stand to benefit from mobile POS systems; retailers ranging in size from self-employed vendors who previously only accepted cash to the largest U.S. big box stores can use mobile POS to increase efficiency and lower costs, according to the report. Significantly, consumers are interested too; the report, which was based on two online surveys of a total of more than 9,000 consumers, as well as interviews with 14 mobile POS vendors and two related payment firms, found that the majority of consumers surveyed currently view mobile POS acceptance by merchants as either “very convenient” or “extremely convenient.”
But there are some challenges to widespread acceptance of mobile POS systems, the report noted. Among those are the currently crowded marketplace, in which a number of small startups and large, established companies are jockeying for acceptance in the U.S. and internationally. To succeed in this competitive landscape, mobile POS players will need to provide customers with a robust feature set, competitive pricing and knowledge of which consumer segments to target for early adoption of mobile POS, according to Javelin.
