“Bloomberg reported yesterday that Apple would turn the iPhone 6 (to be unveiled on September 9) into a mobile wallet through a partnership with major payment networks, banks and retailers and that this mobile payment platform would be powered by a NFC (near-field communication) chip,” AtonRâ Partners writes for Seeking Alpha.
“The revenue and earnings opportunity is huge for Apple. According to research firm Adyen, the share of payment transactions taking place on a smartphone or tablet grew to 19.5% in December 2013 from 12.6% in December 2012. And close to 73% of these mobile transactions took place on an iOS device (vs. 27% on Android devices)!” AtonRâ Partners writes. “We believe that investors’ first reaction could be to assume that Apple will catch up with PayPal pretty soon and hence to value Apple’s mobile payment initiative at least in line with PayPal. As PayPal is worth around $40bn, the Apple stock price could get a 6% boost. But there is obvious upside on this figure in our view, as Apple has a much larger (and high-end) user base: 800m users vs. 152m PayPal users.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote earlier today regarding the Jennifer Lawrence et al. iCloud nude photos hack:
Bad, bad, bad optics. In fact, it’s tough to imagine worse optics for Apple if they do indeed hope to debut a mobile payment system in a week. Yes, these celebrities should have used two-step verification for Apple ID if they wanted to keep their accounts secure, but there are no two ways about it: Failing to prevent brute-force iCloud password attacks long ago was a tremendous oversight for the world’s most valuable company. Apple needs to be equated with security and privacy. Today, they are not. Today, in the minds of the general public, Apple is insecure and nothing is private on Apple devices. Apple’s rather dysfunctional and often too-slow-to-react PR department has a challenge to rival Antennagate on their plates, one week ahead of the company’s most important events ever. Good luck, Apple!
Public Service Announcement: The problem is that too many people use one password for multiple services. The hackers guess it right once and than have access to all sorts of things: cloud storage, bank accounts, twitter, email, etc.
Regardless of the origination of these photo and videos, social engineering hacks can be thwarted, at least for iCloud. Use two-step verification for Apple ID to keep your personal information as secure as possible. More info here.
As we’ve written before: Always use unique passwords and use Apple’s Keychain Access and iCloud Keychain to create and manage them. When used properly, it works like a dream.
Related articles:
iWallet: Apple teaming up with Amex, Visa, MasterCard on iPhone payments – September 1, 2014
NFC chip from NXP confirmed for Apple’s ‘iPhone 6′ – August 29, 2014
Apple may soon deliver the watershed moment for mobile payments – August 29, 2014
Apple working with NXP to bring pay-by-touch NFC technology in new iPhone – August 29, 2014
Apple’s ‘iPhone 6′ will include NFC mobile payments, sources say – August 28, 2014
More evidence of NFC support for both iPhone 6 models – August 27, 2014
Schematic suggests NFC chip in ‘iPhone 6,’ amount of RAM remains unknown – August 18, 2014
Apple’s iPhone 6 line will sport new A8 chip, faster Wi-Fi, improved Touch ID, and NFC – August 6, 2014
NFC, wireless charging, improved LTE rumored for Apple’s ‘iPhone 6′ – June 9, 2014
Apple patent reveals new iPhone antenna that adds NFC – May 22, 2014
To fix the optics problem they will impose a new security layer. As in announcing that everyone will need to use two-step within 6 months, or locking down photo data behind mandatory extra security. Something actual and different. Just words will not change this perception.
Apple is a growth machine at least 10-15% growth next 5 years!
Just like the good old iPod days.
Nice to hear Wall Street is giving Apple the benefit of the doubt over mobile payments. WS seems to be saying Apple may pull this one off. However, they’re not going overboard which makes sense. In whatever way Apple monetizes it, that’s money in the bank and it won’t have a dependency upon hardware. It will rely solely on iPhone users’ confidence in Apple’s security. Maybe Apple will be less doomed from this point in time.