Mobile Payments To Explode By 2019

Mobile Payments currently accounts for about $50 billion, but that number is expected to nearly triple by 2019 to $142 billion, the New York Times cited from a report from Forrester Research.

The study, which was released Monday (Nov. 17), included industry thoughts from a dozen payments companies — including PaPal, Verifone and Visa, which indicated that “the shift to mobile commerce was growing quickly.”

“Companies like Google, PayPal and AT&T have tried for years to create their versions of a mobile wallet, but they have not gotten much traction. Forrester claims that the market has matured over the last five years, and it expects that the next five will be the tipping point bringing mobile payments into the mainstream,” the New York Times said, quoting Denée Carrington, a Forrester analyst as saying: “It’s not just that we have smartphones. It’s that we’re increasingly dependent or rely on or expect them to deliver more.”

Carrington said Apple Pay, which has been attributed to giving new life to the mobile payment industry, could hit $34 billion in volume in the U.S. by 2019. That’s nearly 10X Forrester’s current estimates for 2014, the article said.

“The largest area of growth, however, is not likely to be at the cash register. Forrester predicts that remote mobile payments — that is, purchases made via apps and mobile websites — will be the largest area of growth over the next five years. The firm expects they will reach $91 billion in volume in the United States by 2019,” Nthe ew York Times reported.

The research also looked at peer-to-peer payments through services like Venmo, Square, PayPal and Gmail will be one component that will add to the mobile payment growth rate. Forrester predicts that segment will increase from this year’s prediction of $5.2 billion to $17 billion in the U.S. by 2019.