A new survey conducted by ABI research found that in most developed areas of the world, person-to-person mobile payments aren’t of much interest to consumers.

The survey, conducted in November 2009 in seven countries on three continents, found consistently low levels of interest in making person-to-person payments via the mobile phone.  The survey polled subscribers, equally divided by gender, in Germany, France, the UK, the US, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea.  In all, about 200 respondents participated from each country.

The overall results showed that only 16% of Western Europeans surveyed considered themselves “extremely” or “very” interested in mobile P2P payments, while in the United States, the percentage was only 9%.  Consumers in the three Asia Pacific countries showed much greater interest, however, at 34% overall.  “It’s tough to make a convincing case for mobile P2P in most developed markets,” explained senior analyst Mark Beccue.  ”We believe it will have minimum impact in these markets because some forms of electronic P2P such as PayPal have operated there for several years with relatively low market penetration; and because these markets boast extensive ATM and banking networks, giving consumers easy access to cash to conveniently conduct P2P transactions.”

In developing markets, however, the results would be far different, says Beccue.  “In parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America which generally lack good tools for convenient P2P transactions other than face-to-face, mobile payment methods will be huge.”

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Visa, not to be left out in the largest mobile conference around, utilized 2D barcodes to create a unique mobile sweepstakes campaign to attendees of this year’s Mobile World Congress.

Partnering with Neustar, the company initiated a call-to-action by way of encouraging attendees to download a barcode reader, as well as giving each attendee a faux Visa gift card as part of their welcome packets.  The Visa cards were equipped with 2D barcodes on the back, and attendees were encouraged to scan the code each day to enter a “Check Your Balance” sweepstakes to win 50 euros.

As part of the promotion, attendees were asked to answer a question testing their creativity, with the most creative answers winning a Visa gift card every 30 minutes from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily.  Questions like; “Answer the simple question: More people go with Visa. Where would you like to go with your Visa card? Simple, but an effective way to engage the group-aspect of the event.

“Visa recognizes the power of these mobile bar codes,” said Diane Strahan, vice president of mobile services at Neustar. “A barcode is a call-to-action—it’s saying scan me, snap a picture of me, and brands love it because it’s a call-to-action that takes you straight up the marketing value chain.  A barcode encourages consumers to take action, and Visa likes it because it can take you all the way to commerce.  Barcodes can take consumers from awareness, interest and desire to action, from a payments and mobile money transfer perspective.”

Even with Visa’s use of 2D barcodes, there still wasn’t much interest in mobile barcoding technology at this year’s MWC.  No major announcements were made in terms of the technology, and the concept didn’t seem to be as present as I thought it would, especially given the international dominance of the showcase providers and companies.  Even so, Visa’s campaign was innovative, unique and surely successful.  I wish we could see more campaigns like this from major brands.

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A new survey conducted by Luth Research on behalf of the MMA found that 17% of adults in the US utilize mobile banking, with usage growing to 22% by next year.  Mobile commerce in general is a hot topic at the moment, and consumer interest in the technology is growing rapidly.

The survey gathered input from more than 1,000 US-based adult consumers, a sample large enough to provide a statistically accurate snapshot of the entire US adult population, and found that 92% of respondents said they own a cell phone and 19 percent of that subset currently do banking with their phone- an amount equivalent to 17 percent of all US adult consumers.

How users interact with mobile banking came as surprise, with the survey revealing that most utilize a mobile Web browser (11%), followed by SMS (8%) and mobile apps (5.5%).  While most, including myself, think mobile apps would be the most common channel to access mobile banking, it’s the mobile browser that’s still on top.  Over the next year, however, SMS mobile banking usage is estimated to remain flat, while mobile-Web-based banking is expected to rise to 14%, followed by mobile apps at 8.5%.

From a marketing standpoint, having users gain interest in mobile banking — and becoming comfortable with the idea — means more opportunities for mobile commerce-oriented and transactional-based marketing techniques.  “The data provides clear evidence that mobile is becoming a viable platform for banking,” said Jacqueline Rosales, evp of business development and client service at Luth Research.  “The task at hand for marketers in mobile banking is to migrate consumers from engaging in primarily informational services such as checking account balances to using transaction oriented services.”

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Juniper Research recently published a new study regarding the growing use of mobile ticketing, stating that some 15 billion mobile tickets will be in use by 2014.  Though it sounds like a huge number, it’s only the beginning of an industry that’s poised for significant growth, according to Juniper.

This year, just over 2 million mobile tickets have been delivered to subscriber’s mobile devices worldwide, with the Far East and China regions leading the trend.  By 2014, however, Western Europe is predicted to take the top spot, given its advancements and device integration in recent times.

Not surprising, the transportation sector is leading the pack in terms of mobile ticketing up-tick, with SMS, barcode and even “app-driven” services being offered more and more by rail, metro and airline companies.  As the report suggests, mobile ticketing will transition to many other industries outside transportation by 2014, with interest from major cinema chains, concert organizers and sports teams.

Many consumer sectors are beginning to realize the commercial viability in mobile ticketing, with cost savings and up-sell revenue potential being the primary drivers.  Users have always responded well to mobile ticketing, especially as new technologies evolve that will help bring the technology mainstream.

NFC, or “near-field-communication,” is set to take mobile ticketing to the next level.  Reducing the steps taken to receive and redeem mobile tickets will do wonders in advancing the technology.  Once device integration with NFC starts to permeate other regions of the world outside the Far East, device limitation hurdles will be easier to overcome.

“Although 15 billion sounds large, it is in fact a small percentage of total tickets issued; there is plenty of scope for innovative solutions to penetrate this market,” says report Author Howard Wilcox.  “Next steps will see more widespread purchasing on mobiles, as well as use of NFC tickets.  Currently, however, there are only limited examples of NFC ticketing usage outside of the Far East, owing to the lack of device availability.”

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Ok, I will admit I have never worked for a carrier and I don’t know their future plans for mobile commerce, but I do know one thing:  carriers love money and they do a good job at taking way too much of it. Yes, premium SMS is a multi-billion dollar industry and it’s made a lot of carriers good money, but could it have been even bigger? Premium never really took off for SMBs and, let’s face it, there are millions more smaller businesses than bigger ones. You had to be a big player like Disney or Universal to really make money with content like ringtones and wallpaper. The carriers typically take 50% of the revenue generated from premium content; as a result, it didn’t allow many people to jump in the game. Overall , I don’t think we have seen the mass adoption that premium could have made if it was less expensive to get in. Of course, the premium SMS scandals that took place didn’t help either. There were a number of unscrupulous companies that would get consumers locked into premium monthly subscriptions with no way out.  As a result, there were quite a few lawsuits and consumer confidence was damaged.

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A new startup out of Palo Alto, CA has the unique intention of utilizing social media “virtual currency” to allow users on Facebook to complete third-party offers in exchange for free pre-paid wireless airtime.

The startup, Embee Mobile, has launched a Facebook application dubbed “Embee Mobile Minute Wallet,” whereby mobile subscribers can earn, spend, manage and share prepaid mobile credits and “top-up” when they’re running low by completing various offers and surveys, shopping at predetermined Online retailers, watching movie trailers and product commercials and more within the Facebook app.

When users login to the Embee dashboard on Facebook, they can click the “Paycheck” tab to be taken to all available third-party offers.  Once complete, the so-called “virtual currency” is credited to that user, and once enough has been accrued, the user can redeem for pre-paid minutes on most of the national well-known pre-paid mobile providers.  So far, Embee works with 30 US-based pre-paid providers, including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Boost Mobile, Virgin and others.

The service is aimed squarely at frugal pre-paid mobile subscribers willing to fill out surveys and quizzes to save money on airtime, and the company itself was founded by a group of students at UC-Berkley’s Hass School of Business.  Nearly one-fifth of mobile subscribers in the U.S. are prepaid, and the total U.S. prepaid market is estimated to be worth $15.8 billion.  Frugality is a major attribute to many consumers in this market, and Embee is attempting to capitalize on it.

Utilizing Facebook as a distribution platform was a smart strategic move on Embee’s part.  Utilizing the social aspect and integrating virtual currency — that in itself has gained massive popularity on Facebook — will most likely prove very popular with users.  Though still very much in its infancy, Embee will be one to keep an eye on.

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You’ve probably never heard of the concept of SMS gaming, unless of course you’re one of the millions of people paying a monthly fee to play games based solely on text messaging.  Though the thought of SMS gaming seems shrouded in obscurity, startups are already capitalizing on the concept and reaping huge profits along the way.

One such company, Snackable Media, reportedly earned over $170M in 2009 revenue based solely on charging users for text-based games via wireless carriers.  The aspect of carrier-billing and the fact that anyone with a cell phone can utilize SMS to play the games provides a unique and obviously very profitable business model for innovative startups.

While mobile gaming on phones such as the iPhone and Android devices seem to be the latest craze, the fact remains that not everyone has an iPhone or an Android device.  In fact, a vast majority of mobile users still carry simple feature phones- though they’re simple in nature, they’re all capable of SMS.  This dramatically widens the market and is already proving popular with an ever-growing number of sans-smartphone users.

To be fair, the $170M in revenue Snackable Media earned via its SMS games were divided in a 50/50 share with wireless carriers.  Still, the company’s CEO says they’re profitable.  Overall revenue in 2009 was up from $90 million in 2008 and $30 million in 2007.  The company has never accepted VC funding, and drives user-awareness via aggresive direct-to-consumer Online advertising.

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