M-Commerce: Lessons from Mature & Developing Markets - Studies from Japan, South Korea, Canada and Europe

�A rule of thumb for all new technology is first come the acronyms and the hype, then the applications and services. Some of these services become indispensable while others disappear without a trace.� � In the case of mobile commerce or m-commerce, there have been more instances of failure than success. How can operators assure success? In essence, the issue isn�t with m-commerce itself but with its implementation.

Heralded as the evolution of e-commerce, m-commerce encompasses more than the buying and selling of goods and services over mobile devices like cell phones and PDA�s. Since some m-commerce applications are web based, users can browse the internet, check e-mail, do online banking and retrieve information. In mature markets, like Japan, m-commerce enabled devices can act as credit cards, holding small amounts of cash for micro-payments, e-tickets and can even act as keys to open doors in homes and offices.

There is nothing new about m-commerce and KAZAM�s experience with deployments has shown that several challenges need to be addressed for any solution in this space to be successful. Recently the three biggest Operators in the Canadian Wireless Market, Bell Mobility, Rogers Wireless and TELUS Mobility announced plans to jointly develop m-commerce. While it is still to be seen how services will roll-out in Canada, Canadian Operators who have been working on m-commerce collaboration under the Canadian and Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA), have certainly got one of the ingredients right: �inter-carrier interoperability�.

�This is a major step in the right direction, and a far cry from the early days of highly unsuccessful �closed� solution offerings that required users to be either a customer of a particular operator or a given financial institution. However, they are not out of the woods yet. For m-commerce to be a success, operators will have to address the following critical challenges: ubiquity of use, device dependencies, user experience, security, privacy, strong partner network and costs�.

This report shows how m-commerce has been rolled out in mature markets like Japan, South Korea and Europe, has expanded on the critical factors mentioned above and makes recommendations based on the successes and failures of m-commerce deployments in these markets.

Key M-Commerce service offerings mentioned

NTT DoCoMo i-mode
SKT Moneta
Simpay
Vodafone Live!

Companies mentioned

IBM
KTF
Moviles
NTT DoCoMo
Orange
Paxnet
Postbank
T-mobile
SK Telecom
Vodafone