Research In Motion is banking on the potential of near field communications technology and the willingness of consumers to adopt revolutionary mobile payment systems as a new way of life.
According to RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie, “Many if not most of BlackBerry devices throughout the year will have NFC in them.”
On Wednesday, Mobile Marketing Watchcovered the headline-worthy comments of Google chief executive officer Eric Schmidt, who told reporters gathered in Barcelona, Spain this week at the Mobile World Congress that wireless transactions are potentially so profitable that a forthcoming fleet of new Android smartphones will be outfitted with near-field communication technology.
Between Google’s stated interest in NFC and Apple’s rumored investment in the technology ahead of summer’s anticipated release of the iPhone 5, Research in Motion simply joins the growing contingency of mobile industry giants eager to ride the NFC bandwagon all the way to the bank.
A dominant theme at this year’s Mobile World Congress, NFC has experienced limited growth and adoption in the US so far but only as a result of limited user access to the cutting-edge technology. It’s now patently obvious that 2011 will represent a dynamic shift in the mobile world toward an aggressive integration of NFC technology in the bulk of new mobile handsets to be manufactured by the world’s leading smartphone makers.
The expansion of NFC, however, continues globally. Evidenced by a new report in PC World – which also chronicled RIM’s NFC declaration – Deutsche Telekom (the parent company of T-Mobile) announced at MWC that it will “launch an NFC service known as ‘mobile wallet’ in Europe this year, with a planned roll-out in the U.S. and beyond next year.”
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