Mobile commerce sees vast adoption

A study by MEF in June of this year discovered that 82 percent of consumers have used their mobile phones to make a purchase, with digital products being the most commonly bought, although many have also bought tickets, books, and electronic goods using their mobile phones.

Electronic commerce payment is popular primarily through mobile operator billing which accounts for 38% of respondents, made up of 8,350 individuals across nine countries, namely Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, United States, South Africa, Singapore, Qatar, and the UK.

While credit card is popular in first world countries, it is a challenge to persuade consumers in developing countries to use this payment method as the number of bank accounts relative to the population is already low, let alone the number of credit cards being issued and used.

The research also found that 72 percent of global consumers use mobile internet on a daily basis with 18 percent no longer using a fixed line internet access. In Singapore, this number of daily mobile internet users had reached 74 percent while in Indonesia it's 71 percent and in India 67 percent.

In terms of mobile banking, 73 percent of respondents in Indonesia had used mobile banking compared to 48 percent in Singapore and 44 percent in India. 63 percent of Indonesian respondents had sent airtime to someone else. This practice is perhaps more commonly known as sending phone credits.

As for those who have yet to embrace electronic commerce, MEF Global Board Chairman Andrew Bud said, "…with 27% of consumers stating they would use mobile to make purchases more often if security was addressed, the need to build trust further in order to satisfy growing consumer demand is a clear industry call to action."