瞄准移动支付市场，苹果钱包蓄势待发

    本以为将如风暴般席卷全球的移动钱包，在过去几年中可谓命途多舛。谷歌（Google）、贝宝（Paypal）等巨头、无线运营商、大型连锁店，以及Square等前途光明的初创公司，在推广移动钱包上都步履维艰。根据研究公司Javelin Strategy的数据，在多年的努力后，通过移动钱包完成的交易额在去年仅有31亿美元。相对于美国去年零售交易额的大约4.5万亿美元来说，这只是极小的一部分。

    这其中遭遇的挑战数不胜数。由于谷歌无法找到足够的合作伙伴——尤其是商家和信用卡公司，公司的钱包产品萎靡不振。谷歌还难以克服某些无线运营商设置的障碍，后者也在推广自己的钱包类产品。

    而由威瑞森通讯（Verizon）、美国电话电报公司（AT&T）和T-Mobile开发的钱包服务也一样经历着困顿。起初是因为这项服务一直跳票，随后又因为那个倒霉的名字：Isis。随着今年早些时候拥有同样名字的伊拉克暴力圣战组织兴起，运营商宣布他们准备放弃这个品牌名。就在这周，Isis的首席执行官迈克•阿尔伯特宣布这项服务将更名为Softcard。

    而另一方面，Square在今年5月放弃了其钱包业务Wallet，推出了新产品Order，这项应用可以让顾客提前预定餐馆，免去了排队的烦恼。

    从顾客的角度来看，这些努力都走入了同一个误区：并非所有商家都接受这种支付方式，而用手机支付也并没有比信用卡支付更方便，这让它显得可有可无。

    一些分析家相信，拥有强大市场影响力、拥有丰富的设计消费品经验的苹果能够改变这一现状。尤其是包含NFC技术的iPhone会促使更多的商家升级他们的销售终端系统，从而接受iPhone以及越来越多同样配有NFC技术的安卓（Android）手机的移动支付。

    Javelin的移动产品研究总监玛丽•莫纳汉表示：“智能手机在苹果加入后才开始高速发展，平板电脑也是在苹果加入后才广泛流行起来。许多人希望苹果能够化腐朽为神奇。”

    但最近美国明星的苹果账户被黑事件传得沸沸扬扬，将会给苹果造成新的麻烦。

    Creative Strategies的资深苹果分析师蒂姆•巴加林表示：“如果苹果要在移动支付领域取得成功，就必须在安全性上获得比现在多得多的信任。”

    与此同时，移动支付市场的其他领域正在蓬勃发展。Javelin估计消费者去年在“移动商务”上花费了超过560亿美元。这不仅包括使用手机或平板电脑完成的网上购物，还包括通过应用购买服务，如Uber和Lyft的打车服务、Postmates和Seamless GrubHub的食物和商品快递等等。这些通过应用实现的消费已经很快形成了规模达数十亿美元的市场。贝宝的Braintree以及近年来最炙手可热的支付公司Stripe成为了该领域中的领头羊。

    最后，由银行以及贝宝和Square等公司提供的个人对个人（p2p）移动支付也在日渐成长，不过该领域的交易总额仍然较小。iPhone的移动钱包是否会支持这类交易，目前尚不得而知。(财富中文网)

    译者：严匡正

    Mobile wallets, which were expected to take the world by storm, have languished in the past few years. Giants like Google, PayPal, wireless carriers, and major retail chains, as well as promising startups like Square, have all struggled to make wallets popular. After years of effort, just $3.1 billion in purchases came from mobile wallets last year, according to Javelin Strategy, a research firm. That’s just a tiny fraction of the roughly $4.5 trillion in annual retail payments in the United States.

    The challenges have been myriad. Google’s Wallet has been hamstrung by the company’s inability to get enough partners—most notably merchants and credit card companies—on board. Google also struggled to overcome roadblocks put up by some wireless carriers, who were promoting the own rival wallet.

    That service, which is backed by Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, struggled as well, first because it was plagued by delays, and later, because of its ill-fated name: Isis. After the emergence of the violent jihadist group in Iraq by the same name earlier this year, the carriers announced that they would ditch the brand. Just this week, CEO Mike Abbott announced that the service would be renamed Softcard.

    Square, for its part, pulled its Wallet app in May, replacing it with Order, an app that allows users to order ahead and skip the line at local restaurants.

    From a consumer standpoint, all these efforts suffered from the same pitfalls: acceptance at merchants was spotty and paying by phone was not necessarily more convenient than paying with plastic.

    Some analysts believe that Apple, with its market clout and experience designing consumer products, could change the dynamics. In particular, the inclusion of NFC technology in the iPhone, could encourage more merchants to upgrade their point-of-sale system so they can accept mobile payments from both iPhones and the growing number of Android phones that are also equipped with NFC.

    “Smartphones didn’t take off until Apple came in,” says Mary Monahan, research director for mobile at Javelin. “Tablets didn’t take off until Apple came in. A lot of people are hoping that this is a game changer.”

    But recent publicity about hacking into Apple accounts of celebrities could pose a new obstacle for the company.

    “For this to work, Apple has to garner much more confidence in the security of what they offer,” says Tim Bajarin, a veteran Apple analyst with Creative Strategies.

    In the meantime, other parts of the mobile payment market are growing quickly. Javelin estimates consumers spend more than $56 billion in “mobile commerce” last year. The category includes not only e-commerce purchases made with mobile phones or tablets, but also purchases of services like rides through apps like Uber and Lyft, deliveries of food and merchandise through apps like Postmates and Seamless GrubHub, and others. Those in-app payments have quickly become a multi-billion business dominated by companies like PayPal’s Braintree and Stripe, one of the hottest payment companies to emerge in recent years.

    Finally, mobile person-to-person payments, which are enabled by banks and by companies like PayPal and Square, are also growing, though the total number of transactions remain small. It’s not clear whether the iPhone’s mobile wallet will enable these kinds of transactions.