The unveiling of Apple Pay and unravelling of Weve (the UK operators’ payments venture) looked like bad news for telcos’ ambitions in mobile payments in some markets, and highlighted challenges to Google and others’ models. Yet there are already successful telco models and favourable market trends that telcos should exploit. So what are the opportunities now?
Amazon, Google, Apple, eBay/PayPal and Facebook are the big five brokers of digital commerce. But the disruption caused by the rise of mass-market smartphones, and the personal data they generate, means the medium-term leadership of these California-based companies is not assured. Each of them has weaknesses that could hinder their progress towards securing a strong strategic position in the new Digital Commerce 2.0 marketplace, and render them potentially vulnerable to competition from telcos, banks and/or start-ups. (October 2013, Executive Briefing Service, Dealing with Disruption Stream.) Digital Commerce 2.0 Gap