Mobile communication trade group, the GSM Association (GSMA) has announced plans to unite mobile connectivity with high street shopping experiences to help retailers.

At an event held last week in London GSMA, which represents nearly 800 mobile operators worldwide, deliberated how the mobile operators can utilize the Near Filed Communication (NFC) and the other related services to offer the value added services to their customers.

The affirmation of GSMA’s plans came after research, conducted by tech consultants Latitude, found that the mobile alerts would prompt almost 60% of US and UK Smartphone users to shop at least once a week. It said 80 percent will be interested in a mobile wallet.

GMSA, the joint venture of Telefonica UK and Vodafone – Weve – payment service provider – The Logic – and NFC specialists – Proxama – comprehensively discussed the idea of a ‘loyalty wallet’ during the event.

The loyalty wallet will use the NFC and related technologies to combine loyalty cards, discounts, offers and incentives and store items in a single application.

Anne Bouverot, the GSMA general director, said that mobile commerce will develop to support the entire customer experience and they will go further than visiting a single store.

He said the consumers are looking for flexible and all-embracing services that guide them with research, vouchers, travel directions, entertainment and several other aspects of an outing to a destination retailer.

Weve CEO David Sear hailed the idea of the loyalty wallet and stressed the need of collaboration between operators and retailers. He added that Weve is in talks with some of UK’s top retailers for the implementation of mobile commerce vision.

For more information on the world of mobile head to Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona, taking place from 24-27 February, 2014. Contact EAS for best in quality accommodation, marketing and event space at Mobile World Congress, hotels near the Fira Gran Via.  For further information, click here.

Vodafone has released its 4G service in central Wellington and Lower Hutt. The fast mobile internet service had previously been switched on by the company in parts of Christchurch, Auckland, Queenstown, Lake Brunner, Taupo and Wanaka.

Palmerston North would be the next city inline to get 4G. Vodafone’s 4G network build is being rolled out in partnership with long-standing partner Nokia Siemens Networks

Overall, there are more than 150,000 4G-capable devices connected to Vodafone’s network in the country. These devices include iPhone 5, iPad/iPad mini, Sony Xperia Z, Blackberry Z10, HTC Windows Phone X and Samsung Galaxy SIII.

Vodafone 4G service offers up to 10 times faster upload and download speeds than its slandered 3G network.  This means that a 4G-capable device that takes hours to download a movie on 3G would take just few minutes. A book will take less than a second to download.

Russell Stanners, the chief executive of Vodafone NZ, said that initially 4G services will be available to 30% population of the city but it will grow to 50% by September.

Currently, the Vodafone customers are paying an extra $10 a month for the faster mobile broadband speeds of Vodafone. However, Telecommunications Users Association has forecasted that the surcharge would soon be dropped.

Company Telecom, in April, said that it would’ve 4G available on 75% of its Auckland network by October and in 60% of Christchurch and Wellington by December. The local rival company 2degree is also set to kick-off its 4G network build in 2014 and has signed a contract with Chinese telecom equipment giants Huawei for that.

For more information on the world of mobile, head to Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona, taking place from 24-27 February, 2014. Contact EAS for the best in quality accommodation, marketing and event management.  For further information, click here.

The Near Field Communication (NFC) market will witness immense growth in both products and applications in the years to come, according a market research report – NFC Market – Global Forecast & Analysis (2011 – 2016) – published recently by MarketsandMarkets.

NFC market includes products such as NFC chips, readers, tags, NFC enabled SIM/UICC cards and NFC based micro SD cards while NFC applications include mobile payment, ticketing, access control, data sharing, and advertisements.

MarketsandMarkets, a U.S-based global market research and consulting company, after comprehensively analyzing the NFC market on the basis of products, applications, technology, and geography predicted that the total worth of Near Field market will reach $10015.96 million by 2016.

In 2011, there were only 5% NFC-enabled phones in the world and it will grow to approximately 46% by 2016. This indicates that the handset makers are rapidly adopting the latest inventions of technology into their mobiles.

North America, Europe, and APAC are the regions that are expected to make the most in the NFC market. While North America and Europe are still on track to become the major contributors of NFC chips market, APAC has already caught-up with the technology and has accounted for almost one fourth of the share of the total chips market in 2011. The sky-rocketing growth of the market in APAC is attributed to the countries such as South Korea, China, and Japan who had adopted the technology shortly after its invention.

Presently, the NFC application market is occupied by small group of players but a larger number of industry players are expected to increase their involvement with the growth of the application market.

The revenue of the applications market will grow by 35% to reach $34,515 million in 2016 from $7,686 million in 2011. The most productive of all segments is the mobile payments segment that includes both, in-store payment and on-line payment. It is followed by ticketing and access control segments.

For more information on the world head to GSMA Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona, taking place from 24-27 February, 2014. Contact EAS for best in quality accommodation, marketing and event management, venues, hotels near the Fira Gran Via.  For further information, click here.