O2 Wallet launched in April 2012, backed by a multimillion pound marketing campaign as the company looked to steal a march in the UK on rivals such as Google and Barclays with an app that offered money transfer and a shopping comparison tool. The mobile operator says since then there have been "a number of developments in the financial services sector and also within Telefonica", which led to its decision to withdraw O2 Wallet. One such development includes last year's formation of Weve, the mobile advertising, payments and loyalty joint venture between O2, Vodafone and EE. Weve is currently developing …

Domino's Pizza is teaming up with Ford to offer mobile ordering via the automaker's SYNC AppLink starting mid-year. Mobile ordering is quickly growing and Domino's has been one of the leaders in pushing it forward, and now it is extending that leadership to the burgeoning connected car market. This is one of many examples of how carmakers and restaurants are teaming up to meet consumers' needs.

Sears is taking an out-of-the-box approach to building up its loyalty program with a new initiative that turns consumers' fitness achievements into loyalty points. As Sears increasingly moves towards becoming a membership-based retailer, mobile is a key way that the retailer is engaging with its Shop Your Way loyalty members. The newest iteration of this is the "Points for Progress" program that rewards consumers with points in exchange for tracking their health through wearables and applications.

In 2013, Apple Inc.'s App Store generated $10 billion in sales of apps and in-app purchases of digital content such as game tokens and issues of magazines, the technology giant reports. Apple also reports paying app developers $15 billion between the App Store's launch in 2008 and the end of 2013, $8 billion in 2013 alone. Apple takes a 30% cut of all app and digital in-app sales; thus, with $15 billion representing 70% of total App Store sales, total sales since launch have hit $21.43 billion. Apple does not take a cut of sales of physical merchandise through retailers' …

The massive international restaurant chain, Pizza Hut, has partnered with Xbox One to provide customers with exclusive content in the form of augmented reality ads that play on a smartphone or tablet that is aimed at one of the specially made interactive delivery boxes. This campaign has been launched in the United Kingdom and is available on specially marked boxes. These augmented reality ads are for the Forza Motorsport 5 game that was recently released. The AR content can be viewed using the free Blippar app and allows people who order the pizzas to be able to view this unique …

Unilever's Knorr brand is targeting Hispanic shoppers via an in-store promotion linking mobile to a World Cup soccer toy figure giveaway. The promotion is part of a larger campaign aimed at marketingthe Knorr flavoring and other Knorr products to Spanish and English speakers who live nearby and shop at the Northgate Markets stores in Southern California. Historically, marketers have targeted demographic groups and communicated with them in their native languages, and now they are doing that via mobile.

Amazon is set to enter the South Korean market this year, which may have a major impact on the other e-commerce firms that are already there. Amazon is coming from a particularly successful 2013, especially when it comes to mobile commerce, and the company has been working to establish a more formidable presence in the social commerce space. South Korea's social commerce market has been growing well over the past several years and Amazon expects to find success in the market throughout 2014.

Kernel Season's is interacting with movie fans via a new native ad unit in the USA Today iPad application that gamifies movie trivia. The native ad is found in Trailerpop's Trailer Trivia section within the app that lets consumers take quizzes about movie trivia. The ad for the popcorn seasoning brand lets consumers take a quiz with the Kernel mascot performing trailer clips himself.

Toys "R" Us is significantly streamlining the coupon redemption process with a new mobile advertising campaign that directly integrates Apple's Passbook so consumers can easily save a limited-time offer. The mobile ads are running inside Kiip's network of mobile applications, including the Unblock Me iPhone app. The campaign supports Toys "R" Us's bigger post-holiday marketing efforts. "We elected to leverage Passbook for this campaign as the earned coupon can easily be stored via Passbook and redeemed later in-store when the customer is shopping, providing a seamless redemption flow," said Katie Regner, spokeswoman at Toys "R" Us, Wayne, NJ.

Annual retail payments on mobile handsets and tablets are expected to reach $707 billion by 2018, representing 30% of all e-retail by that time. According to a new Juniper Research report, "Mobile Payment for Digital & Physical Goods: Opportunities & Forecast 2014-2018," this compares with mobile retail spend of $182 billion in 2012, when mobile accounted for around 15% of e-retail. The report found that leading retailers were increasingly developing strategies built around mobile, using it as a 'hub' facilitating payment, product discovery and customer retention. As a result, the size and scale of purcha