Trends Report

NFC: What Lies Beyond Contactless Payments

How NFC Will Enable New Product Experiences By Bridging The Physical And Digital Worlds

August 2nd, 2012
Thomas Husson, Vice President, Principal Analyst
Thomas Husson Vice President, Principal Analyst
With contributors:
Carlton Doty , Benjamin Ensor , Jennifer Belissent, PhD , Sander Rose , Denee Carrington , Charles Golvin , Anthony Mullen

Summary

Forrester estimates that close to 100 million Near Field Communication (NFC) devices will ship in 2012. As it finally moves past the chicken-or-egg stalemate of the past five years, the contactless technology is once again causing buzz in the mobile world. The 2012 London Olympics will be a showcase and marketing catalyst for NFC services. Will NFC join the cemetery of over-hyped telecom acronyms like DVB-H, or will it scale to enable new product experiences? We expect NFC usage to remain niche in 2012 and even 2013. However, moving forward, NFC will be embedded in most smartphones — and in a greater range of connected devices — enabling many more use cases than just contactless payments. This report looks at the drivers for and inhibitors to the uptake of mobile contactless services and gives consumer product strategists a vision of how NFC products and services will develop in the years to come.

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