PayPal-Led Research Finds Mobile Commerce Growing Exponentially

Despite security concerns, mobile commerce is growing at nearly three times the rate of overall commerce worldwide, said research from PayPal and Ipsos released Wednesday. A survey of more than 17,500 consumers from 22 countries found that smartphone users wanted to use their phones for payment options such as tapping a smartphone at the cash register to pay (16 percent), or use an app or browser to order ahead of time (15 percent). While 21 percent said they didn’t use their smartphones to shop due to security concerns, the top complaint, stated by 34 percent of respondents, was that the screen size is too small. “We are on the cusp of the mobile-first era,”” said Anuj Nayar, PayPal senior director-global initiatives. ““We’ve seen our mobile growth rise from less than one percent of our payment volume in 2010 to more than 20 percent in 2014.” Mobile commerce is still small compared with online purchases made using laptops, desktops and notebooks, but the “prevalence of mobile shopping is quite significant,” a PayPal release said. Consumers in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates were most likely to purchase something online using a smartphone, the release said. Online shoppers globally preferred to purchase an item from an app compared with a browser, but with the “advent of low cost mobile phones, large phone screen sizes and mobile device security improvements, the barriers to mobile commerce will decrease,” Nayar said.