Mobile Purchases Claim a Rapidly Rising Share of E-Commerce Traffic, Gateway Study Shows

By Kevin Woodward

Smart phones and tablets continue to garner a larger share of payments as consumers increasingly use the mobile devices for more than talking and sending text messages, finds a survey from Amsterdam-based global gateway provider Adyen Inc.

In the Adyen Global Mobile Payments Index, covering May through August, mobile transactions processed by merchants on the Adyen gateway increased 27% from 13.8% of all transactions at the end of April to 17.5% in August.

The most growth was among ticketing merchants with a 22% increase from the previous index that covered an eight-month period from November 2011 through June 2012. This year, 18.3% of all ticketing transactions were made with a mobile device, up from 15%. Travel-related transactions increased the second most with 24.1% of them conducted on smart phones and tablets, up from 20%.

Mobile retail purchases also increased, reaching 17.5% of all transactions on Adyen’s gateway, up 16.75% from 15% in the previous index. Digital goods, such as electronic books and movies, had the smallest increase, 10.3%, going from 15% to 16.5% from index to index.

Only mobile gaming purchases declined in the index, going to 8.5% of all transactions from 9%, a 5.5% decrease. The index does not include transactions made within app stores, like Google Play and iTunes, which sell popular mobile games.

Smart phones were the most popular mobile device in this year’s index, garnering 52.6% of mobile transactions compared with 47.4% for tablets. That’s a reversal from the previous index when tablets held 53.2% of transactions and smart phones 46.8%.

That likely is because of a combination of factors, says Roelant Prins, Adyen chief commerce officer. The 2013 index included summer months when consumers tend to be outside and active more, he says. Smart-phone adoption also is a factor as more consumers use the devices. For example, U.S. smart-phone penetration is now 64% of mobile-phone owners, according to a September survey from research firm The Nielsen Co. In June, it reported smart-phone penetration at 61%.

Along with the increased number of smart phones comes growing consumer ease with using them for mobile commerce, Prins says. Additionally, merchants are investing in mobile commerce, with many updating their mobile Web sites to make them easier to use, he says.

Europe continues to dominate mobile payments, with nearly 18.2% of Adyen customer transactions in the region made with a mobile device. That is 15.4% higher than in April. North America, however, is not far behind with 16.6% of all transactions made with a mobile device by the end of August, compared with 11.2% in April. The North American result follows a comScore finding in August that mobile accounted for $10.6 billion in volume in the first half of the year, or about 10% of all U.S. online commerce. ComScore forecasts that figure could reach $25 billion by year’s end.

Mobile transactions in Asia declined to 11.4% from 12.4%. And in South America, which was added to the index this year, mobile payments accounted for 4.2% of transactions.

As for mobile-device preference, consumers in Europe and North America tend to use smart phones more for mobile transactions. In Europe, 9.7% of all transactions were made with smart phones compared with 8.4% with tablets. In North America, 10.8% were made with smart phones and 5.8% with tablets.

In Asia and South America, tablet use is higher than smart-phone use. In Asia, tablets accounted for 6.3% of all transactions compared with 5.1% for smart phones. In South America, 2.8% of all transactions were made with tablets and 1.4% with smart phones.