From the Breakthrough of Internet to m-Commerce

Smart phones play an important role in daily life, whether it is to check your heartbeat or to shop online. The term ‘m-Commerce’ was coined by Kevin Duffey in 1997. m-Commerce includes

• Mobile money transfer
• Mobile ATM
• Mobile ticket
• Mobile vouchers, coupons and loyalty cards
• Content purchase and delivery
• location-based services
• Information services
• Mobile banking
• Auction
• Mobile browsing
• Mobile purchase
• In-app mobile phone payments and
• Mobile marketing and advertising

The availability of Internet-accessible mobile phones is slowly creating a community of mobile commerce users. It is expected that this community might exceed the PC community. With technology such as WAP or 3G, it is believed that electronic commerce information and/or interactive content will be adapted to the mobile commerce environment.

While the majority of mobile commerce opportunities and purchases are business-to-consumer, the possibility of business-to-business still stands. It is predicted that business users and their requirements will be fulfilled by the 3G services. A report by Accenture in 2001 ‘Future of Wireless’, has suggested that most business activities are easily accommodated for m-commerce.

With the rapid spread of mobile commerce, mobile phone manufacturers such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Motorola had began to develop WAP-enabled smart phones to exploit on the market potential. Interestingly, it was the introduction of Apple’s iPhone mobile commerce based systems like FanGo that the platform started to move into actual applications instead of SMS systems.

The key advantage of m-commerce services is the mobility of conveniences. Mobile commerce allows users the ability to execute transactions regardless of the location and time. With such uniqueness, mobile commerce has experienced relatively greater success in markets like Japan in regards to individual adoption rate. In comparison, this novelty technology has yet to achieve widespread popularity in other markets like USA, Australia and Singapore.

Mobile commerce actualize the possibility of accessing information at anywhere and anytime. It provides users the chance to access the Internet regardless of location (subject to the network coverage of mobile internet operators), the ability to identify a single mobile device’s location (Global Positioning System) and to retrieve and/or update information whenever needed. The features of mobile commerce can be categorized into the following:

Ubiquity: The most distinct advantage of mobile commerce is its ubiquity. With internet-enabled mobile devices, users can obtain any information required. Also, the emerging mobile commerce applications allow users to engage in activities such as instant messaging, linking to social networking websites, conducting financial transactions or looking up for weather news.

Dissemination: The wireless infrastructure that support instantaneous delivery of data to mobile devices allows an efficient distribution of information to a population.

Personalization: With the massive amount of information available on the Internet, it is important that the users receive is relevant. Mobile commerce companies can create applications that allow customizable information and services applicable to users.

Localization: Another significant feature will be the ability to identify user’s physical location with prompted the creation of location-based applications. The Sekai Camera created by Tonchidot is one example of how far such applications can go.

Myntra is the perfect example of an m-commerce company as the mobile is serving as a platform for its business.

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