China's NFC payment transaction values could surpass $8 billion by 2014, and operators will lead the charge to develop the market, according to projections.
ABI Research estimates that China will be one of the big mobile payment markets to play for in coming years.
Already, Chinese financial institutions – including China UnionPay – and third-party mobile payment service providers are competing to take a slice of the “burgeoning” mobile payments industry, ABI said.
But VP for forecasting Jake Saunders said he believes “the mobile payment market in China will largely adopt an MNO-led business model.”
Each of China's three main mobile operators – China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom – have mobile payment ambitions, with China Unicom having committed to launching commercial NFC services by 2012.
ABI said many more NFC handset addons are being sold in China than NFC handsets at present. In 2010, there were 2.5 million shipments of SIMpass contactless payment SIM cards alone, but just 45,000 phone shipments.
Frost & Sullivan has forecast that the global NFC payment market could be worth €110 billion ($155.8 billion) by 2015.