PayPal has launched a new mobile payments service in order to embolden its presence in the Asian market. Asia has proven quite attractive in terms of mobile commerce due to the growing degree of smartphone and tablet penetration and the increasing number of retailers entering into e-commerce. In order to tap into this promising market, PayPal has launched mo.bi.pay, which stands for "mobile built-in payments." This new service is designed to appeal to small and medium-sized enterprises. Merchants throughout Asia are becoming quite interested in mobile commerce. They have found that consumers enjoy shopping from their mobile devices and those …

AT&T has made a move to develop its own mobile commerce platform. The telecommunications company is currently involved in Isis, a platform that was born from a joint venture with Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile. The three companies had invested heavily in Isis and successfully launched the platform in the U.S. in 2013. Isis has promised to be a powerful platform, but AT&T is not willing to place the entirety of its mobile commerce interests on the platform.

Mobile commerce is now the key focus of e-commerce and online shopping providers because of the wide adoption of smart devices - both smart phones and tablets - and integrated social-media marketing.

Do mobile devices really make our lives easier? It depends. Some things, like sending email, isn't necessarily as easy as it could be. But online shopping is another story. It's one of the things mobile devices do pretty well. However, given that mobile commerce is still a relatively new phenomenon, companies like SAP are working to create even more engaging shopping experiences to combat things like showrooming.

Service revenues or fees from m-commerce transactions are expected to reach US$37 billion by 2016, according to the latest research published by Informa Telecoms & Media. New data on m-commerce predicts that values of transactions globally could reach $37 billion by 2016. The biggest opportunity to earn service revenues, according to the research by Informa, will be from the mobile remote payments for physical goods and services and international mobile money transfers.

According to industry data published last week, one sector where there was a clear growth during the holiday season was the online sales of non-food products, which grew 19.2 percent, the highest growth in the past four years. Data published by IMRG shows an 18 percent year-on-year growth, with British consumers spending 11 billion pounds online in December 2013, up from 9 billion pounds spend in December 2012. However, a report published by Jumio, credentials management company, indicates that although British retailers enjoyed the most successful mobile holiday season to date, they still missed out on nearly 1.5 billion pounds …

A company that develops and markets mobile commerce solutions, has announced an agreement with Signifi (Mississauga, ON, Canada), a provider of interactive vending machines, under which Spindle's MeNetwork mobile wallet payment capability will be incorporated into Signifi's SpotShop machines. The accord was announced during the National Retail Federation's 103rd annual "Big Show" Expo at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center here. According to Spindle, the integration of the MeNetwork mobile wallet functionality will enhance payment options for consumers, enabling them to pay for purchases at SpotShop vending kiosks using their smartphones. Customers can rent or purchase DVDs, videogames, Apple-licensed products, …

China's Tencent Holdings has announced plans to invest HK$1.5 billion (US$193.45 million) for a 9.9 percent stake in a logistics services provider, as it looks to beef up its e-commerce business. The investment in China South City Holdings, which is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, will provide a logistics and trade delivery network that Tencent can now potentially tap to compete against archrival, Alibaba Group, and grab a bigger share of the country's 608 million online shoppers. According to a Bloomberg report, the Shenzhen-based company will also work with China South City to assist small and midsize organizations …

Among American companies, more than 99 percent of which constitute small or midsize businesses (SMBs) with fewer than 500 employees, according to the US Census Bureau. Though organizations like the Small Business Administration often herald SMBs as laboratories for corporate innovation, smaller companies have not developed a reputation for leading the charge in moving their payment operations online. In fact, while larger entities are migrating toward electronic payments and digital invoicing en masse, the majority of smaller entities traditionally have remained tied to paper. New research, however, indicates that this is changing. Indeed, SMBs appear to be charging forward, embracing …

Throughout the holiday shopping season, Blinkbox - a video streaming service owned by Tesco - experienced a massive increase in its mobile commerce sales, to the point that they were considerably greater than their overall online sales. The company reports that its sales through smartphones and tablets increased by a massive 674 percent. That said, including its mobile commerce sales they saw an overall year over year increase in their revenues over the same period ( November 25 through January 5) of 245 percent, when taking all channels into consideration. That said, the increase specifically over mobile devices reflects both …