Mobile phone ticketingis going
mainstream with more than 2.6 billion mobile tickets set to be
delivered by 2011, says Juniper Research.
Jupiter says more than 208 million users will have
e-tickets delivered to their mobile phones by this date.
A Jupiter report found clear evidence that the sector is gearing
up for major launches over the next few years.
Early trials, mainly led by mobile network operators, are now
migrating into commercial services that are controlled by the
ticketing issuers themselves, said Jupiter.
Ticketmaster, British Airways and Tickets.com are among major
ticket issuers getting behind mobile ticketing technology, says the
report.
Benefits for the ticketing issuers include reduced cost, better
security to help the fight against fraud and an improved
environmental footprint by reducing paper usage.
Early use of mobile barcode technology will be gradually
complimented by the emergence of NFC (Near Field Communications),
in particular for the transportation ticketing sector where there
are already commercial deployments in the Far East and important
trials in Western Europe and North America, Jupiter said.
NFC is a contactless reading technology that allows users to
"swipe" mobile phones near readers.