The mobile phone industry is missing an opportunity to capitalise on pent-up consumer demand for payment-enabling technologies, according to research conducted by m-commerce software vendor Qpass
The report outlines the findings of the research study conducted with 183 mobile phone users at Waterloo Station in London on 20 September, 2004.
More than four out of five consumers (82.5%) polled said that they would be prepared to purchase items via their mobile phones but only 12.6% had ever done so satisfactorily.
Findings showcase that mobile phone users identified with the convenience and potential of a mobile phone as a payment mechanism: 78.1% said that they would use a mobile phone to pay for parking, 56.3% a newspaper or magazine and 53% tickets for public transport.
Additionally, one fifth (22.4%) of mobile users would be prepared to spend more than £2 per month on mobile subscription services whilst almost half (45.4%) said they would be prepared to pay £1 to £2.
More than three times as many phones users have made purchases via the Internet versus with their mobile phones, with 61.7% admitting to being Internet shoppers versus 20.2% for mcommerce. Ringtones (62.2 percent) and information services (43.2 percent) were the most popular mobile purchases.
For those mobile phone users who had made a mobile transaction, the user purchasing experience was mixed. Almost two in five reported some form of error in the transaction process: 18.9% said that they failed to receive the product, 16.2% received multiple SMS text messages for a single purchase and 2.7% didn’t understand the item when it appeared on their mobile phone bill.
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