BIZCHINA / Biz Life

Portable payments
By LI WEITAO (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-07-10 14:09

According to a recent survey by ACNielson in Shanghai, more than 80 per cent of respondents hoped to integrate banks cards and smart cards into their mobile phones.

These expectations could prove particularly beneficial for companies such as Nokia.

"We are ready to introduce more NFC-enabled mobile phone models," says Joseph Zheng, the director in charge of NFC solutions in China at Nokia Venture Organization.

Nokia is hoping NFC-enabled handsets will help spur the replacement market. The introduction of mobile phones equipped with digital cameras and MP3 players has already sparked an industry-wide replacement boom in the past. But China's replacement market has been growing slowly in recent years, due to high penetration in cities and continued delays in the introduction of the next generation mobile telephony.

So Nokia has been placing big bets on  emerging markets in the countryside, where most people are buying handsets for the first time. But if the NFC-enabled phones prove popular, it could spur the replacement market in China's major cities.

Citing a report by market research firm ABI, Zheng forecast 50 per cent of mobile phones will be enabled with NFC functions by 2009. By 2010, the shipment of NFC phones will hit 500 million units.

"NFC phones are not just about mobile ticketing and payments. We can also use these phones as access cards (to offices or homes)," says Zheng.

Philips and Nokia have already conducted a trial in the Netherlands that enables supporters of Dutch football club Roda JC to use their handsets for admittance to the Parkstad Limburg Stadium. Users can also purchase goods at the stadium's catering outlets and related shops.

The NFC is based on a radio tag technology known as RFID (radio frequency identification), which is expected to be one of the next big things in the retail sector. But unlike RFID, NFC is integrated into mobile phones, which could prove more convenient  and exciting for consumers, says Zheng.


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