Huge redemption increases to come
2009 has seen consumers not quite ready for the full possibilities of mobile commerce. Deloitte found that this holiday season, just 19% of Internet users plan to use their mobile device for shopping, and only one-quarter of that group will actually make a mobile purchase.
But mobile research—and saving money—is more popular. Yankee Group found that in 2009 more than 90% of US consumers were at least somewhat interested in scanning images or bar codes with their mobile phone to get more information or coupons for a product.
Getting coupons via SMS or MMS was nearly as popular, although only 7% of respondents had received mobile coupons in the past three months.
Yankee Group expects involvement with mobile coupons to increase dramatically over the coming years, however. The number of mobile coupons redeemed in North America is set to increase more than tenfold in 2010. Triple-digit increases will follow in 2011 and 2012.
The value of mobile coupon transactions will climb commensurately. Yankee Group forecasts nearly $2.37 billion in North American mobile coupon transactions in 2013, up from just $5 million this year.
Hurdles remain for mobile coupons, which require infrastructure at the point of sale to deal with SMS codes or bar codes readable from mobile devices, but Yankee Group expects these challenges to be confronted successfully in the next few years. And since mobile coupons have been available for some time already, the research firm doesn’t predict consumer education will be a limiting factor.
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Check out today’s other article, “eMarketer Weighs In on 2010 Trends: Social Media & Paid Content.”