OXFORD, United Kingdom—The Yankee Group has cautioned that cell-phone operators in Europe must do a better job of providing useful and premium content and services to boost the prospects of m-commerce.
“Far too often, we have heard the term ‘m-commerce’ used to describe just about any new mobile data application,” said Declan Lonergan, director of European wireless research and consulting for Yankee Group. “This has only served to blur the vision of true m-commerce services and their market potential, as well as to confuse all industry players looking to carve out a slice of the m-commerce revenue opportunity.”
Yankee calls for m-commerce to be divided into three categories: premium content, remote payment and point-of-sale applications. “Driven by premium content applications, we believe m-commerce does have a bright future in Europe,” Lonergan said. “But that will happen only if the region’s cell-phone operators realize soon the essential role that third-party applications and content companies will play in shaping the industry’s future.”
This view has also been supported by a study conducted by AT Kearney into m-commerce use in Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The firm claimed that while more than 30 percent of cell-phone users were interested in mobile payment schemes, the percentage has now fallen steadily during the last 12 months to 4 percent. However, 2 percent of those surveyed said they had actually bought products via their mobiles, an increase from six months ago, which saw only 1 percent.
