WHAT IS M-COMMERCE?

M-commerce or mobile commerce is the buying and selling of services and goods through wireless technology- i.e. handheld devices such as and personal digital assistants (PDAs) and cellular telephones. Japan is seen as a global leader in m-commerce.

As content delivery over wireless devices becomes scalable, faster, more secure, some believe that m-commerce will better wire line e-commerce as the technique of choice for digital commerce transactions. This may well be true for the Asia-Pacific where there are more mobile phone users than there are Internet users.

Industries affected by m-commerce include:

• Telecommunications- in which account reviews, service changes and, bill payment can all be conducted from the same handheld device;
• Information services, which contain the delivery of financial news, entertainment, traffic updates and sports figures to a single mobile device;
• Service/retail- as customers are known the ability to place and pay for orders on- the-fly; and
• Financial services- including mobile banking (when customers make use of their handheld devices to pay their bills and access their accounts), as well as brokerage services (in which stock quotes can be displayed and trading conducted from the same handheld device).

Forrester Research predicts US$3.4 billion sales closed using PDA and cell phones by 2005 (See Table).

Table :Forrester's M-Commerce Sales Predictions, 2001-2005