Youth market ready to use mobiles as wallets

29 Sep 2010

PARIS, FRANCE: Consumers confirm strong interest in using their mobile phone as wallet according to a recent market poll sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent. These findings were uncovered as part of a youth market study exploring the appeal of a mobile wallet service.

The study, conducted by Alcatel-Lucent, over a two week period this summer, with members of its Youth Lab, indicated that 81% showed a strong interest in the service and 89% would be willing to pay a monthly fee.

A total of 226 members of the Youth Lab from 10 countries, including; Spain, Brazil, France, United States, United Kingdom, China, Mexico, Germany, Italy and Japan, most of whom are already using their mobile phone for micro payments such as ringtones, offered a fresh perspective on the appeal of mobile wallet services. Most notable in the survey results was the appeal of application scenarios and the ability for these applications to save time. The option to "Buy a movie ticket without needing to wait in line" was the most appealing to respondents while 75% were interested in "location based coupons" and "profile-based coupons".

The top three most desirable applications with more than 85% interest were:

Wallet balance and transaction check in real time;
Pay for public transport with mobile phone;
Receive an electronic ticket.

For this research, mobile wallet was described as: No longer having to carry all of the cards you currently carry in your wallet for the services are provided via your mobile phone. You can securely pay your bills or make purchases at participating retail outlets using your mobile phone. Your mobile phone can be linked to your credit cards, bank accounts and/or your mobile phone bill. Loyalty cards, coupons, retail gift cards, all can be stored in your mobile phone. The mobile phone can even replace a key pass and membership card. You can also view your bank statements, checks or credit card slips, loyalty points, balance on gift cards, all on your mobile phone.

"User needs vary in different markets, which is why Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel-Lucent's Mobile Wallet Service (MWS) offering has the flexibility to adapt to emerging and developed market needs," said Toon Coppens, director, Product Marketing Alcatel-Lucent Mobile Wallet Service. "MWS is a turnkey solution for mobile operators to deliver mobile payment and marketing programs including, person to person payment, personalized NFC coupons and m-commerce services to their end-customers."

To learn more about this research, read our white paper The mobile phone as a wallet: Appealing to the new generation of consumers.

The Alcatel-Lucent Youth Lab

The Alcatel-Lucent Global Youth Lab is an innovative primary research panel focused on soliciting end-user experiences and preferences from the highly coveted youth market. Lab members are teens and young adults from across the world who use communications technology. Our ongoing research looks to understand how this group experiences entertainment across all the devices they use (phones, televisions, computers and others), exploring both qualitative studies and quantitative insights. For more information on the Alcatel-Lucent Global Youth Lab go to lamp-internet-qa.web.alcatel-lucent.com/youthlab/test/index.html

About Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is the trusted transformation partner of service providers, enterprises, strategic industries such as defence, energy, healthcare, transportation, and governments worldwide, providing solutions to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. A leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP and optics technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent leverages the unrivalled technical and scientific expertise of Bell Labs, one of the largest innovation powerhouses in the communications industry. With operations in more than 130 countries and the most experienced global services organization in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with a global reach. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 15.2 billion in 2009 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. For more information, go to www.alcatel-lucent.com, read the latest posts on the Alcatel-Lucent blog www.alcatel-lucent.com/blog and follow the company on Twitter twitter.com/Alcatel_Lucent.

The Youth Lab MWS Survey.