A wider availability of smartphones combined with more contactless acceptance at merchant locations should generate some $71 billion in near field communication mobile payments worldwide by 2015, research suggests.
The research firm Informa UK Ltd. predicts total shipments of NFC-enabled handsets to reach 630 million, up from some 44 million available in 2011.
"We expect a modest growth of the mobile NFC market for the next two years, but this will change as many of the leading players introduce NFC-enabled handsets, spurred to enter the market by fear of Apple's and Google's ambitions in the sector," Guillermo Ecofet, Informa senior analyst, said in a press release.
Informa expects Google Andriod-powered smartphones to account for the largest number of NFC handset shipments.
