Juniper Research study predicts mobile payments will reach $670 billion by 2015

Another days brings another study that projects how much mobile payments will be worth by 2015 – today, it is the turn of Juniper Research who give us the magic figure of $670 billion. The study is part of Juniper Research’s ‘Mobile Payment Strategies: Opportunities & Markets 2011-2015’ and predicts that all mobile payment segments will exhibit 2x to 3x growth over the next five years. Only 3 days ago, we spoke about the Yankee Group’s projection of $1 trillion worth of global transactions by 2015 and Forrester Research predicted just $31 Billion in m-commerce per year by 2016. To say the figures from the trusted research houses is all over the board is an understatement at this point. Even if you take back at a round up of statistics we pulled together a month ago, you will see how quickly projections are shifting and changing. So why would there be such disparity in the projected figures? Because no one really knows what the future of mobile payments is going to be because we are yet to see whether hype is as big as reality, or whether most analysts have been conservative in their numbers.

The incremental shift that mobile payments represents has not been seen before and has left different research houses looking at different aspects of this rapidly changing and emerging industry and bringing them to totally different conclusions.

What  else does the Juniper Research mobile payments study predict?

The global value of multiple industries is a very hard thing to predict. Technologies that have yet to be released, natural disasters and economic growth are just a few of the variables that can throw larger figures off by billions. However, when a respected research firm like Juniper Research looks into specific categories of mobile payments, the results become far more pointed and less wishy-washy.

“Our analysis shows that emerging segments such as physical goods payments, NFC and money transfers will fuel market growth by a factor of 2.7 times by 2015. Digital goods is the largest segment and, although forecast to more than double, it is not growing as quickly as some of the newer segments,” Juniper Research Senior Analyst, David Snow, explained.

The top 3 regions for mobile payments (Far East & China, W. Europe and N. America) will represent 75% of the global mobile payment gross transaction value by 2015. Juniper Research also found that digital goods payments will account for nearly 40% of the market in 2015. So, if you have that one great novel bursting inside of you begging to be written, get on it as it looks like the world will be ready to purchase it in 2015. The Juniper Research study also suggests that in other parts of the world the need for financial access in developing countries is such that active mobile money users will double by 2013 and drive transaction values accordingly.

Juniper Research also calculated that some 20 countries are expected to launch NFC services in the next 18 months, resulting in transactions approaching $50 billion worldwide by 2014.

What are the conclusions we can draw from the Juniper Research mobile payments report

Well at this time we do not have the full 104 page report, so our conclusions would be based purely on the headline figures that have been sneaked out by Juniper Research to make its report look more sexy. We can tell you this though – based on the figures we have, that 2015 represents $670 billion in global mobile payments and 2014 only represents $50 billion, we feel we can assume that Juniper Research feels that 2014 is the year of NFC mass adoption.