Mobile startups and mobile technologies dominate Fast Company’s list of the 50 most innovative companies for 2013. The number one company on the list is Nike (NKE), which made the list because of its work with wireless sensors. Nike puts the sensors in running shoes and in its FuelBand, a smart bracelet that tracks the wearer’s movements and energy use.
Number two on the list is Amazon (AMZN), which uses mobile to take business away from traditional retailers at the point of purchase, by showing mobile device users better prices than they are seeing in stores. The one area in which Amazon can’t compete is instant gratification, but it’s working on that; Fast Company chose the company for its list because of innovations that speed the shipping process. Amazon still gets more than a third of its revenue from selling electronic media, so its Kindle e-readers are a key part of its mobile strategy. Like Google, Amazon wants to control the medium in order to ensure the primacy of its content.
Number three on the Fast Company list is mobile payments innovator Square, which makes a dongle that turns smartphones into credit card processors. Square was the only major player in this space for more than two years, but last year PayPal presented a major challenge with its PayPal Here service.
Three other mobile companies made the top ten. Uber runs a private driver service driven by a mobile app which is winning rave reviews in cities where it is deployed. The app uses GPS to match customers with the nearest driver. Sproxil sells stickers to medicine manufacturers; the pharmacies attach the stickers to pill bottles and consumers then text the code to Sproxil to confirm that the pills are not fakes. The company’s founder comes from Ghana, where deadly counterfeit drugs are a serious health concern, but the stickers are catching on in developed countries as well. And Safaricom, number nine on the list, is also using mobile technology to save lives. The African service provider connects physicians with people in need of healthcare.
Other companies on Fast Company’s top ten list include Splunk, which manages big data, Fab, an online retailer, Pinterest and Target, which was cited for the use of mobile scanners to speed checkout.
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