A few months back, NXP Semiconductors, the company responsible for the NFC technology found in Android devices, came out and said that Google was extremely optimistic regarding NFC adoption, claiming 100 million mobile phones to be shipped with NFC technology by the end of the year. However it appears that that optimism might have died down a bit as NXP has come out with a revised estimation that does not look too optimistic.
NXP has now come out and said that they would be happy if 40 millions get shipped. CEO of NXP Semiconductors Rick Clemmer was quoted as saying:
“We believe the shortfall is due to a combination of formulation and agreement on the specific business models to support the ecosystem as well as business challenges some handset OEMs are experiencing in the marketplace.”
It’s understandable given that payment services by Visa and Mastercard have been around for decades, and considering that while you have to spend an extra minute or two waiting to sign the receipt, the system just works, so why would people be willing to give up and swap to a whole new system?
So what do you guys think? Given the fact that a huge company such as Google, who probably invested a fair bit into Google Wallet, combined with some early rumors of the next-generation iPhone supposedly sporting NFC technology, you would think that the technology would start to pick up and become a standard, but now it appears that it may very well be just a passing fad.
Filed in . Read more about Android, Google Wallet and NFC.