Mobile Payment Applications: An Exploratory Analysis of the Italian Diffusion Process

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the size of the Italian market for mobile payment (mPayment) services - referred to payment of services and products, but excluding mobile content - and to identify and assess mPayment applications' main diffusion drivers. The research work involved a census of mPayment applications and the analysis of the most relevant case studies. In the first phase secondary sources were mainly used, while in the second step interviews with top managers of involved companies were conducted. Concerning the research findings, in the first semester of 2006, 21 mPayment applications were identified. Despite several benefits are related to these services (e.g. easiness and versatility of use, visibility, improved service quality, etc.), strong inhibitory factors (e.g. consolidated substitutive products, costinefficiency, etc.) and adoption barriers (e.g. regulations, value chain relationships, etc.) are restricting the users' adoption.