Well, many people who’ve been around the mobile industry for a while would probably say “About time too”!! But seriously yes it’s been a long time coming but NFC has picked up a seemingly unstoppable momentum over the last few months driven by numerous announcements. Mobile commerce is taking a step or maybe a leap forward. This month’s Barcelona event only served to reinforce the progress.
So what’s different in 2011 or is this another false NFC dawn?
First though, I couldn’t but agree with my colleague Windsor’s comments in his blogpost on Friday. Optimism is returning. The attendance suggests this too as I believe it was higher this year. For all the reasons that Windsor gives, the potential for applying mobile solutions across a range of everyday functions and activities is exciting the industry and increasingly the users.
For NFC I guess Eric Schmidt of Google in his keynote on the Tuesday evening captured it in a nutshell. It’s a “mega scale opportunity” were his words. Devices such as Samsung’s Wave 578 and the new Galaxy S2 which include NFC were on display but further vendors also see 2011 as the year when they will integrate NFC. RIM is one such example.
All told I spoke to at least 20 exhibitors at some length on the prospects for NFC. These included mobile operators, POS vendors, device, payments, chipset & SIM vendors along with a number of players offering interim NFC solutions.
Regular readers of Juniper’s blog won’t be surprised if I conclude that NFC’s prospects look very postive on the basis of technology in evidence at Mobile World Congress.
But for me what was different this time around? Well, it was that we’ve also seen a number of mobile operator announcements of real service rollouts with some even giving forecasts of the number of users they expect to see in 2011. Equally, another limiting factor for the technology that I’ve mentioned on a number of occasions is the integration of NFC into POS readers. Again good news on this front was evident with Verifone telling me that all its new POS devices will have NFC integrated – so in other words – merchants who replace their POS readers will get NFC whether they know and want it or not. Along with devices finally appearing, I can hear the sound of market barriers crashing to the ground.
My video report from Mobile World Congress is here.
Tags: Google, mobile payment, NFC, Verifone
People, and especially “providers”, getting excited about NFC is not really surprising, it’s been the same for years. However, do the end users see any value in the technology? That’s what will ultimately make it succeed or not and I can’t see much change there…
Thanks for your comment Patrice. Trial and pilot user experiences have been positive so far but I do agree that users need to see value. I think that the value will be from convenience such as ticket payments but also actually from features like money saving coupons where people can see the benefits.
Have been a long time follower of Howards and as someone at the sharp end of providing NFC mobile coupons and loyalty rewards there is no doubt in my mind that we have reached the tipping point. The number of conversations and meetings I have had since the New Year are in complete contrast to last year. People/retailers/agencies/ ‘get it’ and can see the value …. because it’s in their pocket and never more than 3 feet from them. Fast, easy and convenient, a recipe for success.
I have been in the industry for quite a while, and yes I am optimistic about NFC BUT it will probably be implemented in a way that will probably not make many telcos happy.
In effect, it looks like operator led (or GSMA led) NFC, which need specific SIMs and handset capabilities, will be rolled out only on a limited range of low end smartphones or high end feature phones.
In parallel most high end “desirable” handsets like iPhones, Android, Blackberry devices will implement “SIM less” versions of NFC, where telcos will hardly be involved. That is the case of the Nexus S, the first android NFC device.
Yes these handsets will not conform to the GSMA official specs and will not be approved by operators, but since 2007 this matters less – they will actually be desired by customers. And I even if telcos subsidize “their” NFC handsets to 0 it will not really matter, since the largest potential for commercial NFC applications lie within the high end range.
So in the end 2011 will be the year of NFC, but my guess is that it will led by the likes of Apple, Google, RIM, supported by all merchants, banks and application providers, while operators will actually see little money from it. Exactly like the application store story.
Chris – thanks for your comments. Good to see that you’re experiecing the same ramp in interest in NFC!
Jerome thanks for your feedback. I agree that there are the 2 approaches but I guess it’s still early days. The 16 operator announcement from the GSMA does mean substantial support for that approach.