Recently phone manufacturers released that they will adopt NFC in most smartphones. But now, the total share of NFC embedded devices is very low. And it is not clear whether the hot potato iPhone 5 will embed the NFC chip-set.
But players such as carriers and credit card companies seem to have no time to wait for wide distribution of NFC-embedded phones. As the fever for grabbing the market initiative gets serious, all players try to make their NFC technology to be the de facto standard in the market. China Telecom is one of those players. And the company is aggressively distributing devices which adopts Watchdata’s SIMpass technology by the following reasons.
SIM-centric Technology
As there have been several reports about SE(Secure Element), a carrier prefers the SIM based NFC business. SIMpass includes two parts, RF antennae and SIM like the following picture.
[ Feature of SIMpass ]
It has all the necessities in the thin pannel (which can be folded for closing the phone cover, as I know). This SIM based on the NFC technology is easy to spread to users who have phones without NFC.
High Usability
RF based public transportation is common in most Chinese big cities including Guangzhou and Foshan where China Telecom is distributing SIMpass-adopted devices. It means it is very easy to change the RF type from the plastic card to the mobile one. The article says that the usage rate of mobile card and willingness to use is very high
- 90% of Simpass users are actively using the service to make payments
- 32% of subscribers switched to China Telecom to access mobile payments
Source: Internal Survey, China Telecom
More Business Chances
In China the coupon and membership service are so developed that most chain stores and big proprietors are issuing paper coupons and mileage cards for the royalty program. There are high demands for caring customers and increasing revisit. SIMpass can be a good solution for acquiring target customers and making a direct channel for the marketing and royalty service.
Apart from the need for the commerce-related business, authentication will be very useful under the environment that a lot of car owners have installed the security service.
By now, China Telecom focuses on the public transportation service. But the basis for expansion is being established step by step.