Tech Giants Race to Compete on the Emerging Mobile Pay Frontier

By emeadows
October 12, 2012

It is estimated that by 2016, mobile payments could be a trillion-dollar industry, according to Fast Company. Currently, a mobile-payment race is emerging between tech giants Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon.
It surprised many when Apple didn’t include NFC technology in the iPhone 5. The closest Apple has come thus far with mobile payments is Passbook, which is more of a digital wallet.
As for Google, its Google Wallet has been out for a while with limited success. “But Google’s just made a very important move to expand Wallet in a new direction: Micropayments, online,” notes the article.
“Saying in a tweet that it had ‘started an experiment to help content creators bring high-quality content to the Web,’ Google launched a system that lets users buy Web content for a small fee of between $0.25 and $99,” according to Fast Company.
Also, Facebook’s offer of “in-app frictionless payments via carrier billing” hints at a potentially strong mobile payments future.
“Among the fighters in the Great Tech War, it’s Amazon that’s so far been the quietest in terms of mobile payments,” suggests the article. But there are rumors stirring about Amazon pursuing a low-fee mobile pay solution to compete with the likes of Square.

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