After several years of fits and starts, as well as new players continuing to enter the market, eMarketer expects the use of proximity mobile payments in the US to ramp up aggressively. Transaction value will triple in 2016 due to a growing user base, broader merchant acceptance and the greater frequency of consumers using their phones to make point-of-sale payments on medium- and high-priced products.
As the barriers to using mobile phones to make point-of-sale proximity payments gradually go by the wayside, eMarketer estimates that both users and transaction values will undergo aggressive gains over the next several years, as explored in a new eMarketer report, “US Mobile Payments Forecast: Driven by User Growth and Broader Acceptance, Transaction Value Will Triple in 2016.”
eMarketer expects the total value of US proximity mobile payment transactions will more than double in 2015 from the year before to reach $8.71 billion. Though that’s impressive in itself, eMarketer anticipates that 2016 will be an inflection point for mobile payments in the US, with transaction value tripling to $27.05 billion.
Value will more than double in 2017 and grow in excess of 80% through the rest of the forecast period. By 2019, the total value of mobile payment transactions in the US will hit $210.45 billion.
To put this into perspective, proximity mobile payment transaction value will exceed retail mcommerce sales in the US by 2019, eMarketer estimates. In 2019, $149.79 billion will be spent on mcommerce—products or services ordered using the internet via mobile devices, including digital goods (e.g., purchasing a paid app) and physical goods purchased remotely on smartphones and tablets that are delivered at a later date (for example, purchasing shoes on a mobile website or app).
The result is even more striking considering that just 40.5%, or $60.66 billion, of retail mcommerce sales in the US will come from smartphones by 2019, whereas virtually all mobile payment transactions will come from smartphones.
One caveat: eMarketer’s retail mcommerce sales estimates exclude mobile travel sales, which we anticipate will reach $94.80 billion in the US by 2019. Combining total US retail mcommerce and mobile travel sales in 2019 amounts to $244.59 billion—making it larger than proximity payment transaction values in the same year.
Nonetheless, if proximity mobile payments continue on the same trajectory of high double-digit growth beyond 2019, transaction values will likely eclipse combined mobile commerce and travel sales shortly thereafter. Consider that by 2019, eMarketer expects that slightly less than 10% of total retail sales in the US will come from ecommerce and just 2.7% of total retail sales will come from mcommerce.
eMarketer corporate subscription clients can view the full report here.