While mobile operators in most other countries are still struggling to roll out even scant volumes of NFC phones that can do payment, ticketing and other applications, South Korea’s telcos have already crossed the 5 million-phone mark–including NFC versions of such high-profile devices as the Samsung Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note.
2012 was going to be the year that the new era of NFC-based mobile commerce had finally arrived–with Google Wallet rolling out widely, mobile operators in the U.S. and Europe making significant inroads with their own mobile wallets and big Asian m-commerce players generally commercializing NFC, as well.
Sonim Technologies, the maker of rugged work phones, has introduced its first NFC-enabled handset, betting that cleaning companies, security guard firms and home-health care agencies are ready for a more durable–and higher-priced–NFC phone for workforce management.
Contactless payment continues to grow rapidly in the United Kingdom, but transaction volume is still low, and it remains open to debate whether 2011 will be a tipping point for the technology.
Fewer than 2% of consumers are “highly likely” to adopt NFC payments immediately after the technology is rolled out, according to UK-based research firm Datamonitor.
Mobile operator Orange UK and payment issuer Barclaycard face challenges as they seek to get their “Quick Tap” service off the ground, say UK analysts.
Germany-based chip maker Infineon Technologies has no plans to join its rivals in producing NFC chips–instead focusing on secure elements that can store payment and other applications in NFC phones.
The business development lead for Vodafone Group’s mobile payment solutions unit, which runs the popular M-Pesa mobile funds-transfer service in Kenya, said the telco has no plans to introduce NFC to the offer.
With Transport for London’s recent announcement confirming it would be the first big transit authority to accept bank cards for bus and metro fares, momentum continues to build for other large transit authorities to go to open-loop payment.
NTT DoCoMo will sell "hybrid" NFC phones that support both standard NFC and domestic FeliCa technology from Japan’s Sony Corp. when the big telco makes its planned move to NFC late next year.
Struggling video game maker Nintendo will incorporate NFC in its planned Wii U home video game console, including support for payments, the company’s president Satoru Iwata said today.
With the help of NFC technology, airline passengers will routinely tap their mobile phones to pass through security checkpoints and boarding gates by 2018, predicts major airline industry IT and communications services provider SITA.
Turkey’s largest operator, Turkcell, has introduced a second branded Android NFC phone model for its mobile wallet and has launched a new toll-collection application for the model.
Microsoft is requiring device makers to include a “visual mark” for tablets and PCs supporting NFC and running the software giant’s forthcoming Windows 8 operating system.
Samsung Electronics has confirmed it has an NFC version of its Galaxy Note, though that comes as no surprise to operators in South Korea, which have been selling the tablet-smartphone hybrid with NFC inside for about two months.
NFC chip supplier Inside Secure has released a new version of its NFC software stack, as it seeks to break rival NXP Semiconductors’ dominance of the market for NFC chips in Android phones.
Japan’s second largest mobile operator, KDDI, said it would launch Japan’s first mobile NFC service late this month with the Samsung Galaxy S II–though the service will start out small because of the lack of phones that support both standard NFC and Japan's proprietary FeliCa technology, as well as Japan's nearly nonexistent infrastructure of standard contactless readers.
Large Spanish retail bank La Caixa will begin rolling out 1 million contactless cards along with more than 15,000 point-of-sale terminals and 500 contactless ATMs in Barcelona this month.
The SIMalliance trade group and GlobalPlatform standards organization say they are working on what they predict will become a “de-facto standard” for the way apps on NFC phones communicate with secure elements.
Sony Ericsson has announced two NFC-enabled Android smartphones and NFC tags for its Xperia series, touting NFC as enabling consumers to share content, as well as “an increasing number of NFC applications.”
U.S.-based Intel, as expected, is planning to incorporate NFC technology into chip designs for future ultrabook computers, the vice president and general manager of the chip maker’s PC group said Monday.
Turkey’s largest mobile operator, Turkcell, is targeting 2012 for a major expansion of its NFC rollout, as it seeks to establish itself as a top-tier telco globally promoting NFC technology.
Netherlands-based contactless inlay manufacturer Smartrac has announced it is acquiring the RFID business of Finland-based UPM, making Smartrac the largest supplier of NFC tags, according to the companies.
While mobile operators in most other countries are still struggling to roll out even scant volumes of NFC phones that can do payment, ticketing and other applications, South Korea’s telcos have already crossed the 5 million-phone mark–including NFC versions of such high-profile devices as the Samsung Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note.
2012 was going to be the year that the new era of NFC-based mobile commerce had finally arrived–with Google Wallet rolling out widely, mobile operators in the U.S. and Europe making significant inroads with their own mobile wallets and big Asian m-commerce players generally commercializing NFC, as well.
Sonim Technologies, the maker of rugged work phones, has introduced its first NFC-enabled handset, betting that cleaning companies, security guard firms and home-health care agencies are ready for a more durable–and higher-priced–NFC phone for workforce management.
Contactless payment continues to grow rapidly in the United Kingdom, but transaction volume is still low, and it remains open to debate whether 2011 will be a tipping point for the technology.
Fewer than 2% of consumers are “highly likely” to adopt NFC payments immediately after the technology is rolled out, according to UK-based research firm Datamonitor.
Mobile operator Orange UK and payment issuer Barclaycard face challenges as they seek to get their “Quick Tap” service off the ground, say UK analysts.
Germany-based chip maker Infineon Technologies has no plans to join its rivals in producing NFC chips–instead focusing on secure elements that can store payment and other applications in NFC phones.
The business development lead for Vodafone Group’s mobile payment solutions unit, which runs the popular M-Pesa mobile funds-transfer service in Kenya, said the telco has no plans to introduce NFC to the offer.
With Transport for London’s recent announcement confirming it would be the first big transit authority to accept bank cards for bus and metro fares, momentum continues to build for other large transit authorities to go to open-loop payment.
NTT DoCoMo will sell "hybrid" NFC phones that support both standard NFC and domestic FeliCa technology from Japan’s Sony Corp. when the big telco makes its planned move to NFC late next year.