India Digital Summit 2008

India Digital Summit 2008: M - Commerce in India. Money Transfer Through Mobile is the Way to Go!
Posted by Harshil Karia on January 14th, 2008.
M Commerce is at a very early stage. Its about purchase and sale of goods and services through the mobile with the use of a financial institution. Purchase and sale of VAS content cannot be classified as M – Commerce.


The different areas that come under M – Commerce


a) Travel and Ticketing – convenience is the key. Mobiles are and will re iterate their time saving devices.
b) Movie Ticketing
c) Bill payments – making payments to utility and service companies
d) Merchant Transactions & Retail Transactions – Mobile Internet transactions over the Internet is difficult as of now due to low speed of the Internet
e) Money Transfer – transfer from person to person through a financial intermediary


The difference between e commerce and m commerce is that e commerce is limited to PC users with an Internet Connection. With M commerce moving to an SMS platform among other things, M commerce is open to almost the entire mobile population.



An important barrier to m commerce is the state of mobile networks today because there is a risk of transactions not maturing due to poor networks.


For M commerce an eco system between application developers, financial institutions, and mobile phone networks. Simplicity is the key to proliferation of M commerce coupled with the idea of developing trust with audiences.


M – Commerce is expected to grow because:

- Penetration of mobile is 4 – 5 times than PC
- Its 24 x 7
- Mobiles are expected to be at 500 million in 2010



Challenges:

- Security with respect to payment through mobiles. No 3D security is still available
- Speed of GPRS – only 128 kbps
- User interfaces for mobile commerce
- SMS vs GPRS vs Voice


An important thing to note is that with respect to any new technologies that are easy to use – a one time trial generally gives users the confidence to pursue repeat use.

Source: http://www.watblog.com/2008/01/14/india-digital-summit-2008-m-commerce-in-india-money-transfer-through-mobile-is-the-way-to-go/