Type of Article: MacTech Blog

SAP AG (www.sap.com) has announced the findings of its third consecutive GSMA Mobile World Congress survey, which found that 53% of industry leaders believed that improving customers’ retail experience would be essential to creating a successful mobile payments scheme.

The survey is aimed at addressing top issues facing mobile commerce service providers and reflects the sentiments of mobile operators, fixed telecommunication providers, over-the-top (OTT) players and other global mobile industry executives.

Revenues from mobile content, monetized through direct carrier billing, is expected to rise from US$2 billion last year to more than $13 billion by 2017, according to a report from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com).

The report notes that operator storefronts and portals now accounted for just 6% of content downloads worldwide, with Google Play and Apple’s App Store now comprising nearly 70% between them. Indeed, the report noted that the increasing popularity of OTT (Over The Top) stores had led to many operators closing their own storefronts.

In 2013, retailers are increasingly shifting their point-of-sale to mobile devices in response to the explosive growth of smartphone adoption and the demand for a seamless shopping experience across all channels.

According to mobile POS solution provider Infinite Peripherals, Inc. (http://www.ipcprint.com), which has products in 30% of the top 20 U.S. retailers and more than 250,000 mobile POS devices on the market, enterprises should carefully weigh pros and cons before choosing between iOS and Android.

In its newly released MobileSTAT report, Jumptap, Inc., an audience targeting platform — reports on how top mobile share trends will evolve in the comings months.

Among other predictions, Jumptap sees Samsung’s share among Android handset brands climbing to 59% in 2013, while HTC and LG get grouped closely together, but in a distant second place.