HONG KONG: The global Near Field Communication (NFC) industry has taken off this year with Google Wallet making an impact and major handset vendors including Nokia, Samsung (Google), RIM, LG and ZTE launching large volumes of NFC devices. With over 900 million mobile users, mainland China has the biggest potential for the future of NFC deployment. Businesses wanting to reach suppliers of this technology or to research innovations in NFC should participate in CARTES in Asia exhibition and conference at AsiaWorld-Expo, Hong Kong, 28 & 29 March 2012.
Many NFC technologies and applications originated in the West but according to a recent Smart Insights White Paper on NFC in China 2011, mainland China has its own powerful mobile payment solutions. China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom and China UnionPay are the key telecommunications and banking stakeholders. Each one has developed several projects incorporating NFC, or NFC-like technology such as RF-SIM, SIMpass or MicroSD, in major mainland cities that enable customers to use mobile phones to pay for food and drink as well as public transport.
The main suppliers of this technology include Nationz Technologies, Eastcompease, Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics, Watchdata, TCL, Datang and HTC proving that not only is mainland China using NFC but it is also developing and providing its own NFC applications.
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology states that mobile payments are expected to be the driving force behind mainland China’s aim to triple its e-commerce industry by the end of the country's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015). By the end of 2011, mainland China’s estimated current 230 million mobile payments users are expected to generate transactions of $1.8 billion (CNY 11.37 billion), representing a 400 percent growth from 2010, states a research report by Minsheng Securities.
Outside of China but still in Asia, KT, South Korea’s second largest mobile operator, distributed (September) NFC-enabled iPhone attachments preloaded with a MasterCard PayPass application. Users can tap to pay at PayPass terminals in Korea that are also used by full NFC phones and other contactless-mobile handsets. While in Hong Kong, Pacific Coffee has launched (October) the first card-free settlement convenience with its iPhone app linked to PayPal.
Isabelle Alfano, Director of CARTES events, Comexposium, said: “We’ve seen a boom in the NFC industry this year with more and more countries realising the benefits of employing convenient card and cash-free technology. As mainland China’s economy keeps on growing, their huge subscriber base indicates great potential for future NFC deployments - less than one third of users currently have access to mobile payment technology. Government, transport, telecoms, administrative, security and retail industries looking to find out more should head to CARTES in Asia next March in Hong Kong where they will meet hundreds of experts and developers of this ground-breaking technology.”
The 2012 exhibition and conference will be the third edition of CARTES in Asia. Major exhibitors from the smart security industry have already confirmed their participation, such as: Advanced Card Systems, Gemalto, HID global, Ingenico, Inside Secure, Oberthur Technologies, STMicroelectronics, Watchdata.
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