A new survey shows that there are some very specific reasons for which smartphone wallets are used.
A new Market Intelligence and Consulting Institute under the Institute for Information Industry study provided insight on mobile payments use. It showed that consumers are using mobile wallets most frequently for paying for their meals at restaurants and for buying fare on transportation services.
The mobile payments survey showed 76.4 percent of consumers who used the tech did so to pay at a restaurant.
Another 33.2 percent of mobile payment use was for transportation. Finally, 19.3 percent of mobile wallet transactions were for buying clothing, accessories, handbags and footwear.
A senior analyst with the Market Intelligence and Consulting Institute under the Institute for Information Industry, Hu Tzu-li, explained that many retailers have yet to offer mobile wallet transaction options. Therefore, this automatically rules out mobile payments use within a good portion of that category.
After all, mobile payments use trends can’t build in a place where the technology simply isn’t available.
The survey was conducted in Taipei, where the first mobile payment platforms were launched in restaurants. This helps to explain why that shopping segment has grown its use of these transactions in such a meaningful way and why other areas are seeing comparatively lower usage figures.
The survey found that the two areas in which mobile payments have the greatest growth potential are brick and mortar retail stores and card issuing banks.
The research data indicated that 53.7 percent of consumers know that it’s possible for mobile payments use in brick and mortar shops. Another 50.6 percent said that they were made aware of this type of transaction through communications with a card-issuing bank. Twenty seven percent learned about these transactions directly from the mobile wallet industry. Finally, 23.6 percent of survey respondents said they learned about digital smartphone payments through posts they read over social networks.
Clearly, it is in the first two categories that mobile wallets have the best opportunity to educate customers and encourage them to give it a try for the first time. Until then, the preference for using them seems to be for low-value purchases and on relatively rare occasions.
