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Near Field Communication is nothing new; the issue is the world just hasn’t caught on to it yet. Japan is way ahead of the game and you would be hard pressed to find something you couldn’t pay for by waiving your NFC device around, I’ve also heard Holland is big on NFC. As an American I feel behind the times when I see a vending machine that accepts credit/debit cards and think “Wow, we are really moving ahead”.
Hopefully we are seeing the beginning of the end to a world without NFC, beginning with the Nexus S. Now that, that device is semi-readily available iSuppli has made the bold prediction that by 2014, 220.1 million(13%) devices will ship NFC enabled. The numbers shipped this year were 52.6 million, an estimated 418% increase in a few short years.
The numbers may seem out of this world, but considering that three out of the four major US cellular providers, T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon, have teamed up with Discover and Barclay’s to form Isis, that dream just may be lived. Android has built in NFC support starting with Gingerbread, as well.
The Mayans had it right. 2012 is the year the world will blow up…with NFC.
What countries are really taking advantage of this technology? Aside from the two mentioned.
[via Into Mobile]
cool
Nice
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Korea uses NFC, it’s enabled by the SIM in the device. You can do banking, transportation, purchasing, billpay and probably other things from putting your device up to the reader at countless places.
Holy cow! How will they fit the entire National Football Conference in there? Madden Football 2011 was impressive, but this really takes the cake.
Scott = Fail
I dunno…seems pretty conservative. By that time, Apple probably will have added it, and I’d think most Android handsets will have it…25% from Android + 10% from Apple + whoever else has it = >35%. But what do I know….I’m no fortune telling analyst :)
That doesn’t seem that many to me? If people only change there devices every 2years on average (a guess), then that would only suggest about 6.5% of all devices are NFC capable come the end of 2014. NFC will need bigger numbers than that to be the future, esp. for payments … come on manufacturers!
With the rate that Android headsets are coming out, even in USA alone, I’m almost confident that that number will be a lot higher.
Now, how many places in the US will actually start taking advantage of that technology is a whole another argument.
I want a NFC engine starter for my car :)