With the mobile phone becoming a more and more adopted tool for communication, so is its possibilities for payment. According to Juniper Research the total market for payments made via mobile phone for digital goods (such as music, tickets and games) and physical goods (typically gifts and books) will exceed $300bn globally by 2013.

Key findings of the research includes:

• Global annual gross transaction value will grow over five times by 2013

• The ticketing segment will be driven by consumer usage on rail, air and bus networks as well as sports and entertainment events This will represent more  - than 40% of the global transaction value by 2013

• The top 2 regions (Far East and W. Europe) will represent over 60% of the $300bn p.a. global mobile payment gross transaction value by 2013 for digital and physical goods

• Western Europe is currently dominated by digital goods and services sold via SMS, whereas the Far East & China region (specifically Japan) is already well established in physical goods sales over the mobile web, and has been for a number of years.

Source: Juniper Research

Friday, a new service was launched in Germany starting a new chapter for mobile payment. Two of the country's largest carriers - O2 and Vodafone - have joined forces and launched "mPass".

With mPass direct debiting and SMS payment confirmation is combined into a new service that makes it possible for customers to purchase physical goods from the Internet or mobile portals, by using only their phone number and an mPass PIN of their own choice

When a purchase is processed using mPass, a message is sent to the customer's phone asking for a purchase confirmation. By replying, the amount is then debited from the customer's bank account. By doing so the need for entering sensitive and personal informations such as bank and credit card details is eliminated.

"Our customers ask for simple and smart solutions. Our payment system takes account of this request. Effective immediately and without the need to register, the system offers about 14 million contract customers of Vodafone and O2 the possibility to pay online in an easy, rapid and secure manner - at home and on the go." says Lutz Schüler, General Manager, Marketing & Sales for O2 Germany.

The typical U.S. mobile subscriber now sends and receives more SMS text messages than they do mobile telephone calls and older people are also adopting SMS text messaging.

As of Q2 2008, a typical U.S. mobile subscriber sends or receives 357 text messages per month, compared to placing or receiving 204 phone calls.  Though the number of calls has remained relatively steady, the number of text messages is up 450% from just two years prior.  Q2 2008 was the second consecutive quarter in which the average number of text messages sent was significantly higher than the average number of phone calls placed.

In addition to showing the trend of texts compared to calls, Nielsen’s research shows that the typical U.S. teen mobile subscriber (ages 13–17) now sends or receives 1,742 text messages per month (compared to making or receiving 231 mobile phone calls).

Source: Nielsen Mobile

A recent study carried out by Articifical Life shows that mobile entertainment is increasing its popularity in the U.S. and that handphones capable of displaying videos, playing games and browsing the internet is an increasing demand by many consumers.

The study was based on the answers from 200 mobile phone users, revealing that 87.5 percent of the respondents that own a smartphone use it for music, games, and videos. Suprisingy 33 percent tells that they use the entertainment-part on their phone over any other purpose, showing that the U.S. mobilephone owners are moving away from the traditional use of phones being talking and texting - and are embracing the new posibilities offered by today's modern devices.

Of those respondents that did not own a smartphone device more than half (56%) actually desired a device with high-end features, such as those found in smartphones.

"It's motivating to witness more U.S. consumers, handset manufacturers and carriers taking advantage of the new capabilities of 3G smartphones, including rich 3D gaming, social networking, music and videos, from anywhere at anytime,'' said Eberhard Schoneburg, CEO of Artificial Life. ''Individuals see the value in mobile phones beyond business productivity, and are beginning to see them as tools to complement their hobbies and lifestyles in fresh and exciting ways."

Artifical Life is a global developer of mobile applications, mobile participation TV and business applications for high-speed broadband networks.

Source: Cellular-News.com

Since April this year it has been possible for customers flying to European destinations with Lufthansa out of Germany, to get their boarding card directly to their cell phone.

If you are planning to fly with Lufthansa remember to bring your phone to the airport as it will ease your check-in process remarkably. Using your mobile phone it is possible to receive the boarding card either as an e-mail or SMS link. This service is developed by Lufthansa and their partner MindMatics - and already have 7,000 users a week, by far exceeding the already high expectations for this project.

Using the mobile service a 2D barcode image representing the boarding board, will be delivered to the phone and then scanned at the boarding gate.

Further development has been pushed forward due to the high interest from customers and are planned to introduce internatinal use of boarding card over the mobile phone. Recently it became possible to carry out the entire check in process using the cell phone, including choice of seat and boarding card collection. 

"The successful application in this challenging B2C area shows that the mobile phone can now also be used in an industry with particularly high security and service level for the efficient and secure use of business processe" said Felix Heimbrecht, Vice President of Mobile Internet Services at MindMatics.

Source: 160Characters Association