21% Want Mobile Payments or Mobile Wallet

Here's a marketing question for you: if you conducted a survey about a product almost nobody has ever used, using terms they've never heard, and 21 percent of survey respondents said they would buy it, is that encouraging or discouraging?

As it turns out, 21 percent of 1,000 polled consumers indicated they already were waiting for a mobile phone with near field communications features that allow them to use the phone as a payment device in retail locations. The survey, sponsored by Retrevo, also found that 79 percent of respondents are not interested in mobile wallets or don’t know what a mobile wallet is.

You might wonder how valid a survey can be when it asks people about something they don't understand, or haven't experienced before. One might wonder what the results would have been if respondents had been asked whether they were interested in an "easy to use" mobile phone," as if Apple had asked respondents (it never did) whether they were interested in an easy to use personal computer.

Some might say the fact that 21 percent actually want a phone that can function as a payments vehicle, with no other features indicated, is a high percentage of users. Some might say the additional value of a contactless mobile payment app or service is actually fairly low.

You can argue it saves time, and it might do that. But credit or debit card swipes don't take too long, either. and a few seconds at a checkout counter is hard to quantify, in terms of additional value.

The other problem is that we don't yet know what set of values will ultimately prove attractive enough to make NFC-based payments highly popular. Some will argue, and with good reason, that other values, including discounts and other rewards, will be the drivers for wider adoption.

As you likely would expect, younger users express more interest. Some 28 percent of respondents 18 to 35 were interested in mobile payments.

About 75 percent of respondents 50 or older indicated they did not want to use their mobiles as payment devices.

The Retrovo study does also indicate that, at the moment, consumer notions of "logical providers" of mobile payments services are mixed. Application and device providers, credit and debit card companies or banks, and mobile service providers all are seen, within fairly close ranges, as suitable providers of mobile payments services.

iPhone Owners Ready For Mobile Wallet, Will Apple Deliver? | Retrevo