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FEATURE // INTERNET 8 MOBILE BUSINESS Quarter Four 2010 m-COMMERCE Trends in m-commerce: I want it all, I want it now The mobile phone is ubiquiTous, personal and connecTed. ThaT is why reTailers, bankers and markeTers wanT To use iT for informing, enabling and TransacTing business. They are succeeding in global markeTs, buT have been slower To make inroads locally. local m-commerce experT belinda simcox provides The insighTs you need To keep up wiTh The play… emember the days when your predicted 5 billion subscribers by the end of this as subscribers – your car, fridge, games console, pockets jingled with copper year. Within 2-4 years more people will access TV and so on. coins and you had to borrow the internet from their mobile devices than from We’re amidst a new computing cycle. From a pen at the till to write out a their desktop PCs. The worldwide smartphone the mainframe in the 1960s, mini computing in cheque? Those loyalty, eftpos and market grew 50 percent year over year in the the 70s and personal computing in the 80s, we Rcredit cards you now use instead are about to be second quarter of 2010, and a recent study by are now in rapid transition from the desktop replaced by something as ubiquitous – your per- Juniper Research forecasts that nearly half of internet computing of the 90s to a new era of sonal and always connected mobile phone. all mobile phone users worldwide will pay by mobile internet computing. This movement is mobile for digital and physical goods by 2014. happening at an unprecedented rate – at 8 times The world loves smarTphones Couple that with the success of touch-based the speed the PC web was adopted. This rate of Mobile and wireless communication tech- tablet devices and we are likely to see the addi- change and innovation is due to the convergence nologies are being adopted with unprecedented tion of manyfold new subscribers in markets of a number of key trends including 3G high velocity. Two-thirds of the world’s population, already considered saturated. Then add to that speed mobile access, social networking, video 4 billion people, have a mobile phone with a base a new legion of IP addressable machines over IP, VoIP, cloud technology and impressive > Quarter Four 2010 MOBILE BUSINESS 9 FEATURE // mobile devices. new markets. Compounded by the growing Typically when a new technology hits 20 tech savvy of our local consumers, Australasian percent penetration is when it goes on into the businesses need to innovate to become competi- mainstream of early majority. Globally that tive or lose share to international competition. inflection point for 3G adoption, varies by Already 90 percent of New Zealand’s internet region. Japan reached it many years ago with Large international players are not traffic is directed to offshore sites and a corre- now 99 percent 3G penetration. Meanwhile sponding 70 percent from Australia. North America and Western Europe surpassed wasting any time defining their This sentiment is echoed by Stuart Christie, 20 percent in 2007 and 2008, and for Asia mobile commerce plans. head of Strategic Marketing at M-Com. “Service Pacific (excluding Japan), 3G is set to hit that and retail businesses need to actively develop critical mass in 2011/2012. Stuart Christie, Head of Strategic solutions to protect their long term value proposi- Marketing at M-Com tion. Large international players are not wasting explosive growTh any time defining their mobile commerce plans. So what does this all mean for us in payments market, particularly offshore with Patents lodged by international players will con- Australia and New Zealand? Already over 28 their mobile payment solution adopted by large strain local scope to offer competitive proposi- percent of Vodafone NZ’s customers access telcos in the Philippines and the Middle East. tions – the result is leakage from the NZ economy the mobile internet every month, 60percent For the past decade, mobile marketing firms, to the likes of Amazon and iTunes for example.” of which are via smartphones. NZ is certainly Run The Red and The Hyperfactory have been Mobile commerce has come a long way in a experiencing this explosive growth, with smart- leading lights on the international stage, the lat- relatively short period of time and gone are the phones the fastest growing segment of handsets ter winning industry accolades and recognition days of simply associating mobile commerce being sold. An estimated 13 percent of mobile worldwide. So it comes as no surprise that the with SMS. To understand mobile commerce as users in New Zealand have a smartphone. At the company was recently acquired by one of the a whole, it’s important to understand the range end of Q1 2010, 48 percent of new mobile device leading media marketing companies in the US, of technologies involved, the reach and varying shipments in Australia were smartphones, and Meredith Corporation. audiences for different types of mobile com- it’s expected they will outpace traditional mobile Although NZ led the way, it seems we have merce. This gives the background to then under- phones before the end of the year. Having adopt- not maintained that pioneering momentum, stand the overall limitations and challenges. One ed the other technology trends of the developed particularly with our online retail endeavours. reason mobile commerce is so effective is that markets, we are following closely in the footsteps We lag seriously behind our US and UK coun- it provides businesses with a way to reach their of our larger counterparts. terparts, due in part as a nation of SMEs with target consumers throughout the day, and not In fact, New Zealanders were early pio- our small domestic market not providing the just when they’re at their PC or leafing through neers in the mobile arena. Ten years ago we purchasing power to resource sophisticated a catalogue. saw M-Com leverage NZ’s historical leadership online shopping enterprise. Also Trade Me’s suc- As it continues to grow overseas, mobile in eftpos e-payments with their breakthrough cess and mindshare dominance over NZ’s online commerce will inevitably start to play a role here mobile banking and payment technology and shopper has slowed things down. New Zealand so this is the time to get up-to-speed with how now have over 180 banks on board across 5 con- has the highest per capita consumption of trans- it works and where it is heading. Just like the tinents (UK, Canada, Australia, USA, Thailand, parent C2C trading exchanges in the world and internet itself, we’re about to enter another era of Cambodia and Egypt). M-Com just recently on a per capita basis outdoes eBay in the US. disruption to business. took home two TUANZ Innovation Awards. Retail shopping is about to undergo a major Fronde Anywhere have also been delivering The need To innovaTe change with consumers using their mobiles to a range of mobile SMS payment services into Local retailers and eCommerce technology not only pay for goods but to use them to scan the local market since 2001 (e.g. Txt-a-Park and companies have been fortunate to operate in a bar codes and bring up on their mobiles internet Kiwibank) and are active on the international protected market. Our small, isolated geography information about the products to help them stage with the success of their mobile commerce and high shipping costs have historically shel- make a choice. Everything from the supply chain and payments service in the Philippines. tered us from direct international competition. to the customer leaving the store with the prod- GFG Group, another local mobile payments However, offshore retailers and technology-relat- uct can be traced providing firms with detailed company, have also been active in the mobile ed companies are now looking abroad to grow research they could not have dreamed possible. Customers will be able to get special offers before going into stores or be tempted to pop by Snap this tag to get a web-linked pdf version of this article. as they enter the area in which the store is locat- If you need a QR Code reader, go to http://istart.gethardlink.mobi ed. This brings exciting new opportunities for a (from your phone’s browser), and install the i-Nigma QR Code reader. sector that has been hard hit by the recessionary Then open the reader, and take a photo of the tag above to Snap the Tag! climate of the last few years. (thanks to www.contrastmedia.co.nz) So welcome to the new mobile commerce revolution. Are you ready for it? 10 MOBILE BUSINESS Quarter Four 2010 m-COMMERCE Mobile tagging is an area that pro- vides huge opportunity for growth. Chris South, Contast Media CEO mobiles scanning bar codes Mobile Tagging or Extended Packaging as it is also called, uses camera-based readers to scan bar codes - either the most common 1D linear ‘EAN/UPC’ bar codes or the more recent square 2D bar codes such as the QR (Quick Response) Code well known in Japan and East-Asia and subway synchs up designed for mobile applications. Subway NZ has launched a sophisticated Once new scanner hardware is installed in Pointing the phone’s camera at a bar code ordering app for the iPhone and iPod Touch that Subway stores, customers will be able to use the instantly takes a consumer to extended product showcases the value of integrating member profiles app as a full Subcard that displays a 2D barcode for information, a website, video content, maps, and transactions across multiple channels.

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