Annual digital payments to reach USD 4.7 trillion by 2019 - report

According to a recent report from Juniper Research, titled Digital Payment Strategies: Online, Mobile & Contactless 2014-2019, the largest net increase in spend would occur through remote physical goods purchases. The research has also highlighted the dramatic surge in activity in emerging markets such as China, with the online retailer Alibaba accounting for 20% of global business to consumer (B2C) and consumer to consumer (C2C) eRetail worldwide in 2013.

However, the study has observed that while there was organic growth in the overall transaction levels due to increased purchasing on tablets and mobile, a significant proportion of tablet usage represented migration from desktop activity. The research has also pointed out that combined transactions on mobile handsets and tablets would exceed those on desktops and laptops for the first time this year.

The report has also noted that there was accelerating migration from physical format (DVD, CD) to digital (stream, download) across all core content sectors. These included a marked trend towards VOD (Video On Demand) from players such as Lovefilm and Netflix at the expense of DVD, with online VOD services in commercial deployment in most European markets.

Meanwhile, the research has also added that contactless activity will primarily be driven by card purchases rather than mobile, although it argued that mobile transactions should be boosted by Host Card Emulation (HCE)-based near field communications (NFC) services.