Mobile Payments Might Take a While....

Technology adoption, though we sometimes believe otherwise, can take quite a long time, even for innovations that wind up being quite useful and ubiquitous. Indeed, many popular innovations were adopted relatively quickly, and there is a trend for newer digital products to be adopted very rapidly.

Telephone and electricity took decades to reach significant penetration. The PC, the Internet (Web, at least) and mobile phones were adopted much faster.

Given the current interest in mobile payments, mobile banking and mobile wallets, it might be worth remembering that innovations related to payments and money often take decades to reach significant penetration.

The point is that it would not be unusual for a decade to pass before we even get to the inflection point for adoption, often said to be 10 percent of households. The point is that there is plenty of time for any number of approaches, and competitors, to disappear before we reach 10 percent adoption of households. 

But a corollary might also be true. No contestant not already in the market when the inflection point is reached, likely will be among the leaders when the market reaches 50 percent.