[Satellite TODAY 10-07-11] The gross merchandise transaction value of mobile payments for physical goods will exceed $170 billion worldwide by 2015 — nearly tripling the market’s $60 billion forecasts for 2011, according to a Juniper Research report issued Oct. 6.

   Juniper Research found that initial growth in mobile payments had been fuelled by a dramatic upsurge in retail apps in the wake of a significant consumer smartphone market growth spurt. Juniper Research Senior Analyst David Snow noted that the market displayed an increasing awareness of the need to enable an integrated shopping experience and seamless access to retail sites across multiple devices.

   “Our research for this report underlined the importance of mobile as an extra channel to market, but Juniper believes that mobile campaigns must be tightly linked to print, online and store based campaigns to ensure consistency of customer experience. Increasingly people will browse on one device such as a PC and then buy from another such as a smartphone,” Snow explained in the report.

   The Juniper report also advised vendors to continuously innovate their solutions as consumer markets develop and become more competitive. “The market will gain further momentum in the medium term following the increasing deployment of POS (point of sale) solutions to facilitate in-store cashless transactions,” said Snow. “Retailers have observed a marked uplift in average transaction value when cash is replaced by a mobile payment method.”