Mobile devices to account for almost a quarter of all point-of-sale transactions by 2023, study finds
Growth of mPOS devices in India will reportedly be the fastest of any global region over the next five years.
The adoption of mPOS (mobile Point-of-Sale) devices connecting wirelessly or via mobile devices will drive annual mPOS transactions to over 87 billion by 2023, representing 24% of all POS transactions by that year.
A new study from Juniper Research says this will represent a threefold increase over an estimated 28 billion transactions in 2018. It also claims that mPOS devices will drive an increased usage of payment cards in emerging markets, such as India.
“The digitisation of payments, spurred on by the policy of demonetisation, means that growth in the number of mPOS devices in India will be the fastest of any global region, at an average annual growth rate of 46% over the next 5 years,” Juniper Research said in a statement.
The new research discovered that the average price of an mPOS device will drop from $40 in 2018 to approximately $33 by 2023. The affordability and the simplicity of mPOS devices will reportedly make them “highly attractive to smaller, previously cash-driven businesses.”
“As a result of the popularity of Square and iZettle, traditional POS manufacturers have identified mPOS as an important way to diversify revenue streams, at a time when established revenue streams are losing momentum,” research author Nick Maynard explained.
The research also forecasts that biometrics will become “increasingly common” in mPOS offerings. Citing national identity schemes using biometrics (such as Aadhar in India) as a mechanism for card-free authentication, they say such trends will drive biometric-enabled mPOS devices to reach almost 2 million globally by 2023.
