And you thought NFC wasn’t growing?
The number of NFC-enabled devices in use will exceed 500 million in 2014, according to a new report.
ABI Research’s “NFC Devices, Strategies, and Form Factors” calculated that a minimum of 285 million mobile and consumer electronics devices will ship in 2013 as OEMs continue to drive the market for NFC as mobile operators struggle to gain control and bring their services to market.
Mobile manufacturers moved ahead with NFC in 2012 whilst MNOs were still largely focused on payments, where they have struggled to deliver tangible services. This has allowed predominantly Android OEMs to seize the initiative as they have delivered new services and features for connecting devices, sharing data and content, picking up information, and utilizing tags.
“NFC has reached the point of no return,” says John Devlin, practice director at ABI.
“It all hinged on handsets; and next year we will see half-a-billion devices in the hands of consumers as it becomes more widely integrated,” Devlin adds. “Up until this point banks and other service partners were holding back from committing to MNOs and it has always surprised me that they did not drive this forward themselves and invest to take charge of this market’s potential.”
