A report from Gartner says the number of mobile payment users worldwide will exceed 108.6 million in 2010, which is a 54.5% increase from last year. This represents 2.1% of all mobile phone users.
Asia/Pacific is the leading region for mobile payment, with 2.6% of all mobile users - 62.8 million people - making payments on their phones. The report also notes that the Short Message Service (SMS) is still the dominant mobile payment technology in developing and developed markets.
Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner, said "We continue to see strong growth in developing markets in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa for mobile payment, while adoption in North America and Western Europe lags behind due to the plentiful choices of payment instruments that consumers have. Developing markets have found the right formula for mobile money services — functions that users want and an ecosystem that can sustain the service."