Goodbye to the Traditional Wallet, Enter the Mobile Wallet

The following is a guest post from Tope Abayomi, Founder of Emityme Apps.

Can your customers pay for product and/or services through a mobile phone?  If not, you should start thinking of implementing an option unless you’re comfortable  leaving money on the table.

                                                     

New forecasts from PayPal show that this year’s total mobile payments (TMP) volume is expected to reach $3 billion.  But PayPal only serves a small part of the mobile payment market.  For all mobile payments sent through all systems in the US, the total volume is set to hit the $6B mark, according to Forrester Research. PayPal’s number is double from what they expected at the start of the year, as the number of customers using their phones to pay has soared.

Read more »

Fiksu: Android Users 2X More Likely Than iOS Users to Open an App Ten Times or More

Mobile app monetization provider Fiksuhas published new data comparing mobile app loyalty on both Android and iOS devices, finding user loyalty to be much higher on Android.

                                      

The company analyzed more than four billion “app actions” through its platform and applied a metric defining a loyal user based on the number of times he or she opens an app.  The data shows that on average, Android users are two times more likely than iOS users to open an app ten times or more.  iOS still dominates among premium brands but what this means is that there’s plenty of inventory available on the Android platform, where global traffic can cost much less than iOS traffic based on standard supply and demand principles.

Read more »

Apple Falls Short of Earnings Estimate for First Time in Seven Years

On Tuesday, Apple announced quarterly earnings for its 2011 fiscal fourth quarter, which ended September 25th. Incredibly, Apple fell short of analyst estimates. Analysts had predicted that Apple would report earnings of $7.39 per share on revenue on $29.69 billion. Instead, Apple earnings came in at $7.05 per diluted share on revenue of $28.3 billion.

                                

Today narked the first quarterly earnings report since Steve Jobs’ departure as CEO and eventual passing. It was also the first earnings miss for Apple since 2004. Consequently, in after-hours trading, shares of Apple (AAPL) plunged better than 7%.

Not withstanding the initial disappointment, Apple still saw its earnings grow dramatically over the same quarter last year. For the quarter, Apple sold 17.07 million iPhones, 11.2 million iPads, and 4.89 million Macs.

Read more »

Millennial Media Shows iPhone, iPad Now Major Players in Mobile Ad Impressions

According to the latest data released from independent mobile advertising and data company Millennial Media, the iPhone and its tablet sibling, the iPad, have earned some fairly lofty placements across a broad variety of mobile advertising statistics.

                                                           
The Mobile Mix Q3 Report reveals that iOS impressions grew 60% year-over-year, from Q3 2010-Q3 2011. In particular, iPad impressions grew 456%, and iPod Touch impressions grew 30% year-over-year.
Not to be outdone, the iPhone accounted for 54% of the iOS impressions on Millennial Media’s platform, while iPod Touch and iPad combined to make up the other 46%.

Read more »

Square Rolls Out Sophisticated Mobile Payment Solution for iPhone

Square has unveiled a new app for iPhone users called Card Case. Acting like a digital wallet, the new app enables users to complete purchases at participating stores without even having to retrieve the device from their purse, pocket, or coat.

“This is truly the simplest way to pay,” said Megan Quinn, director of products for Square.

The app opens a tab with the merchant for payments to be made automatically when the user is in close proximity to a store that uses this particular service.

                                      

This is made possible by Apple’s new iOS 5, which delivers a state of the art location-based mobile technology.

When a user is ready to make a purchase, the customer simply states their name. The store employee at the point of sale or cash register can then verify the user’s face on their side of the app. Subsequently, the charges are issued and the money is automatically withdrawn from the debit card or credit card associated with that individual user’s app.

According to the folks at Square, the service is available at some 20,000 outlets nationwide that have already signed up to accept Card Case payments.

Read more »

eBay Sees $5 Billion in Mobile Sales in 2011 via Mobile Apps, Smartphones

It is shaping up to be a banner year in mobile sales for eBay. This week, the online marketplace’s CEO, John Donahoe, revealed that eBay will have done $5 billion in business this year via mobile phones. eBay owned PayPal isn’t far behind with $3.5 billion in mobile payments for the calendar year.

                                      

The smartphone boom and corresponding popularity of eBay’s mobile applications have made this impressive feat possible. Donahoe admits that that eBay’s applications for iOS, Android and Windows Phone have been downloaded in excess of 56 million times.

“We are seeing profound change in how consumers are behaving and will behave. We believe we are at an inflection point,” Donahoe reportedly said this week at the Open Mobile Summit. Our perspective on mobile is that it’s not incremental, it is another screen in the shopping experience. It’s a consumer that is coming back more frequently and shopping more because now it can be done at any time of the day. We know it is driving consumer engagement and customer value.”

Read more »

Older Model iPhones Prove Top Selling Smartphones of Q3

Apple’s iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS were huge sellers during the third quarter of 2011 in the United States.

That information comes to use by way of the latest data from research outfit NPD Group.

NPD Group says that Apple benefited greatly from the sizable growth experienced across the entire domestic smartphone market.

The share of U.S. mobile handset sales that were smartphones topped 59 percent in the third quarter of 2011 – 13% higher than Q3 of 2010.

                                  

Read more »