U.S. Mobile Payments in 2017 Equally Split Between Retail an Remote Payments

The volume of U.S. mobile payments will reach $90 billion in 2017, a 48 percent compound annual growth rate rom the $12.8 billion worth of mobile purchases in 2012, according to Forrester Research analyst Denée Carrington.

Mobile proximity payments (retail transactions) are currently the smallest category within mobile payments, but Carrington expects it to be the fastest growing category. Proximity payments will reach $41 billion by 2017, making up nearly half of all mobile payments in 2017.

Cross-border remittances using peer-to-peer networks either for bill payment or sending money to other people, will exceed $4 billion in remittance value over the next five years but will fail to achieve the scale of mobile proximity payments or mobile commerce, Carrington forecasts.

Mobile remote payments, which Forrester Research calls “mobile commerce,” represent 90 percent of the mobile payments category and will continue to be the most-dominant category, representing about $45 billion in transaction volume. 



Analysts at Gartner in 2012 had a similar range of forecasts.