Hong Kong is a city that loves mobile technology. At 63%, Hong Kong has one of the highest rates of smartphone usage in the world. A 2013 study by Google and Ipsos MediaCT found that 96% of Hong Kong smartphone users browse the internet daily, the highest rate in Asia. But you don't need to look at the data to know. Just take a walk in the city or ride public transportation and you'll see what appears to be most of the population with either earbuds firmly implanted or heads craned downwards reading news, playing games or watching videos. Where …

Subway joins the quickly blossoming list of quick-service restaurants making a bigger push into mobile by enabling customers to place orders via an application on their smartphones. The sandwich chain was an early mover in mobile ordering, launching an app in 2012 with such capabilities for California locations. An expansion of that program has been expected and now appears to have arrived, with a report in the New York Post stating that Subway locations in Manhattan are testing an order-ahead app.

Michael Zimmerman's hedge fund Prentice Capital believes up to 80 per cent of consumers will embrace mCommerce in 2014, and it anticipates significant increases in the amount of money shoppers spend online via mobile. This view is supported by research published in a report from mobile ad network InMobi which states that 83 per cent of surveyed respondents plan to use mobile commerce in the next 12 months with a further 48 per cent of respondents using mobile to influence their purchasing decisions.

Dropbox has become one of America's best financed start-ups by securing $500 million in borrowing. The credit facility was led by JP Morgan Chase & Co. and brings the total amount Dropbox has raised to $1.1 billion. Square is also reportedly pursuing a credit facility and will look to raise about $200 million, though all details have not been finalized, according to The Financial Times. Goldman Sachs led the Square round, along with Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Chase, among others. "Securing access to low-cost capital always makes financial sense, even for a well-capitalised company like Square," a company spokesperson …

Snapdeal, an online retailer based in India, has been seeing strong growth over the past several months. The company is on track to compete with Flipkart, which is another online retailer that is well known throughout India. Snapdeal has been able to find success among consumers due to its focus on mobile commerce. Many people throughout India are making use of their mobile devices to shop and purchase products that they are interested in. Snapdeal CEO and founder Kunal Bahl has announced that the company has reached more than $1 billion in sales a full year ahead of its target. …

Mobile commerce and associated digital services will be the fourth big money spinner for mobile operators as the voice, SMS and data waves wane, says Herman Singh, managing executive of m-commerce at Vodacom. Indeed, m-commerce could save mobile operators from what Singh calls a "gradual move to commoditisation" of the technologies that historically propelled their growth. He says that SMS and, later, data underpinned growth for operators even as their voice businesses became "slightly commoditised". As technologies get to 70% market penetration, unit prices tend to drop, Singh says. "We saw this happen globally with voice. In Japan, for example, …

While digital how-to's have been a key strategy for home improvement retailers for some time, thanks to the growth in mobile and social, chains such as Lowe's and IKEA are exploring ways to put the most relevant content in front of customers. With consumers increasingly using smartphones and tablets to research home-improvement projects, retailers in this space are increasingly leveraging the convergence of mobile and social to get valuable how-to content in front of consumers during the path the purchase. For example, Lowe's recently updated Improve with Lowe's site leverages responsive Web design, social profile data and geographic information to …

Domino's Google Wallet integration into its Android application highlights how pizza chains are focusing on tweaking small features to grow mobile order volume. Once consumers go through the process of placing an order in Domino's app, they can now pay for the meal via Google Wallet. Users can also create a Google Wallet account straight from the mobile app. "We are always looking for ways to make digital ordering easier for our customers, and making Google Wallet Instant Buy available as a payment option helps that," said Chris Brandon, head of public relations at Domino's, Ann Arbor Charter Township, MI.

Consumers are increasingly shopping online and on their mobile phones, drawn by the ease of locating things they want to buy and cheap or free fast delivery from major e-commerce sites like Amazon. But for most brick-and-mortar stores, the shopping experience hasn't really changed. That's why the new app Downtown was launched, to provide a way for local small businesses and chain locations to participate in mobile commerce. By doing so, they'll be able to sell and deliver items to nearby residents even faster than the big e-commerce chains.

Ecommerce giant Amazon is embarking on a major new effort to enable the sale of stuff in the real world. "We are building products and services which will delight billions of customers as they buy and sell things in the real world (as opposed to online)," the company said in a recent job posting for its new Amazon Local Commerce business. The operation is headed by Charlie Kindel, whose new title at Amazon is "Director, Consumer Products - Amazon Local Commerce." Kindel previously headed Microsoft's Windows Phone developer program and aided in the launch of Microsoft's overhauled operating system for …