Payment solutions provider Adyen has released their third Mobile Payments Index, and the results are clear: mobile payments are poised to pounce.
The data covers September to December of 2013, and shows that mobile payments accounted for 19.5% of payments globally. This is an impressive number, which suggests that mobile payments are gaining momentum on their traditional counterparts.
The index is based on the company's global payment transaction data, coming from their network of 3,500 medium-to-large scale businesses processing more than $14 billion in payments in 2013 - $2.2 million of which was via a mobile device.
Of course, pundits such as Tnooz have been discussing mobile payment dominance for years. Some see mobile-only payments as a revolution still waiting for its moment, as PhoCusWright's Douglas Quinby expressed in an article here (and see comments below for discussion on definitions of "mobile payments").
This is the graphic Quinby used to share research on how little interest there is on the part of travel providers to accept certain types of mobile payments.
However, with the continued buzz on Bitcoin and the release of TouchID-enabled phones, there seems to be some consumer-side traction according to this latest data.
It's hard for anyone taking payments to ignore 19.5% of the global population. And that's year-over-year growth of 55%, with the previous December clocking in at only 12.6% of payments taken on mobile devices. If the same growth were to occur this year, global payments on mobile could end up at a third of all payments by year-end.
Travel was highlighted as an especially strong performer in the second half of 2013, posting some surprisingly strong results:
Travel saw an increase of 22% in mobile payments and beats every other vertical with nearly 30% of all transactions made over smartphone or tablet.
In travel, the research found that consumers were actually more likely to purchase travel on smartphones rather than tablets; this is another counter to accepted wisdom that no one buys travel on phones due to the small screen.
The results found that travel payments were made 17.5% of the time on smartphones and 11.9% of the time on tablets, as this graphic shows.
Apple continues to dominate the purchase statistics, showing the commercial vitality of the Apple ecosystem especially in comparison with Android and Blackberry.
The number of merchants processing mobile payments is also steadily increasing, with over 60% now accepting payments via mobile devices. As merchant adoption increases, consumers will be more likely to pay via their mobile devices - and vice versa. This demand could then fuel a further rise in mobile payments.
In order of size, the share of mobile payments in the second half of 2013 was iPad, iPhone, Android tablets, Android mobile, Blackberry and finally Windows phone trailing the pack.
The full report can be viewed here.
NB: Credit dip image courtesy Shutterstock.