Near field communication (NFC) technology will become a standard feature of smartphones over the next three years, according to a new report by Juniper Research.
The company claims that one if five smartphones, or around 300 million handsets, will include NFC by 2014, with North America and Western Europe expected to be the biggest adopters of this technology.
NFC uses short-range wireless technology to transmit data, allowing mobile users to wirelessly pay for things like train tickets by simply waving their phone in front of a special contactless reader.
Howard Wilcox, author of Juniper’s NFC ‘Retail Marketing &Mobile Payments’ Report, said: “Although there are still hurdles ahead, NFC prospects have been boosted by the succession of mobile operator and device vendor announcements.”
“France is a case in point where operators expect to sell one million NFC devices this year.”
NFC is currently only installed on a handful of mobile phones, including the Google Nexus S and the Samsung Galaxy S II .
However, companies including HTC, LG, RIM, Apple and Sony Ericsson are all expected to announce smartphones that support contactless payment technology over the coming months, although early reports suggest the iPhone 5 will not be one of them.
