Will we or will we not have a new iPhone with NFC technology implemented? Nexus S has something like this and it is "very useful", so why wouldn't Apple implement such technology in the future iPhone terminal? The answer is very simple: because for now in the US the penetration rate of NFC technology for mobile payments is only 1%. However, we are talking about the USA where the first technologies generally appear, so think how little NFC technology is used for payments in Europe, Asia or South America. It would be illogical for Apple to now bother with NFC technology, which more than 90% of customers will not use because they have nowhere.
NFC-based mobile payments require NFC-capable POS terminals," Sacconaghi wrote. “Only 51,000 retail locations support contactless payments (per Verifone's 10K); given that First Data alone deals with 4.1M merchant locations in the US this suggests current penetration of just over 1 percent of merchant locations. Clearly, a higher critical mass is needed before mobile payments would take off. We do not expect the iPhone 5 to feature an NFC-based payments solution, and instead expect Apple will evaluate and come to market with partners or a complete solution later, perhaps when NFC infrastructure is more established," he said in a note to clients . "We note that Apple did not release the first cloud-based music offerings, or the first 3G or LTE handsets, and entered mobile advertising only after Google bought AdMob - instead, the company has made its name from re-inventing MP3 players, smartphones and most recently tablets/netbooks, and would retain the option to eventually do the same with mobile payments.
Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst with Bernstein Research, a checked the information above with US retailers and everything he says is 100% correct. Apple will revolutionize mobile payments through NFC when it really is the case, but now it would be a waste of time and money to implement NFC in the iPhone. We in Romania would really have nothing to do with NFC technology and I am sure that the situation is identical in most European states.
