A number of big tech-based companies, such as Google, have promised that NFC technology will revolutionize mobile commerce, eventually. Starbucks is unwilling wait for the day Google released their much hyped Google Wallet, a mobile payment platform for smart phones, and is expanding their already popular mobile payment application to the Android market. The coffee giant has seen success with their mobile payment application for months.
The app’s first incarnation is a gift card which shoppers were able to use to purchase drinks by waving it in front of a barcode scanner. It has evolved into a stand-alone application for smart phones that allows customers to purchase products through their phones, using NFC technology to complete the transaction. No personal financial data is stored within the phone itself, but the application receives regular cash injections from the user much the same way a traditional, rechargeable gift card would.
Starbucks is expanding the availability of their app to the Android after seeing how successful the system was with the iPhone and Blackberry. Chuck Davidson, category manager for innovation with Starbucks, says that the Android platform will make or break their mobile payment system. The Android platform represents one of the most influential sectors in mobile commerce. If the technology is not adopting amongst Android users, there is little likelihood of it succeeding elsewhere for long.
Davidson notes that there had already been 3 million mobile transactions through their payment system on the iPhone and Blackberry when the application was only nine weeks old.
