Is NFC ripe for adoption, or has it missed the boat?

OPINION: ABI Research caused quite a stir this week when it distributed a press release saying NFC has taken too long to develop, that other mobile payments solutions such as SMS have beaten it to market and it will now be six years before NFC becomes a viable mobile payments solution.

A little further investigation finds the press release has exaggerated the researchers’ point of view a little, however, and ABI still expects to see NFC deployed in “significant numbers towards the end of next year.” As more and more innovation comes from the non-payments sector, though, it raises an interesting question. Does NFC still need mobile payments to succeed?

Sarah Clark, Editor

Next: Visit the NFCW Expo to find new suppliers and solutions

2 comments on this article

  1. It would be interesting to survey readers or your newsletter for their expectation for when:

    A: In which year will 25% of phones in Europe have NFC? (250M phones in Europe in 2007)

    B: In which year will the number of NFC transactions reach 10% of SMS (note 1.7 trillion SMS sent world-wide in 2007 according to Gartner)

  2. It's like comparing apples and oranges – remote and proximity payments. Each has its own uses and solves a different set of problems.

    SMS based server wallet accounts have been around for atleast eight years in Asia. Mobile payments have existed much before NFC came on the scene.

    NFC does not compete with those sms based legacy systems but rather complements them.

    Maybe research companies have their own motive to periodically inflate and then deflate different technologies to create business for their publications.

    But if it ends up confusing the market as in this case, these agencies should put someone more knowledgable on research tasks.

Comments are closed.