How Do mPOS Players Rank?

Welcome to the new monthly mPOS Tracker, version 2.0, a PYMNTS Special Report sponsored by ROAM. You all know very well how the mPOS space has and continues to evolve – moving well beyond the phone and dongle. And, beginning with this issue, we’ll be ranking the players we track. Our methodology is simple but effective. We’ll be scoring players based on numbers and types of devices used, geographies where solutions are implemented, the number of payment types accepted, and more.

Those who scored the highest this month were those whose platforms enable a variety of capabilities and functionalities – they have the greatest ability to support many retailers and fully monetize the mPOS ecosystem. Those players are PayPal, ROAM, PowaPOS and Payleven. We also saw a few new players join the mPOS pyramid, but the focus the last several months seems to be on fine-tuning existing solutions – there weren’t a lot of new players entering the sector.

There was other news though. Retailers of all sizes and shapes interested in taking “checkout” to their customers are getting into mPOS up to their elbows. For instance, to meet the needs of the changing consumer and mPOS environment, Apple took its in-store mPOS solution to the next level to better its service – its EasyPay solution is now EMV and NFC compatible. Elsewhere, the market of mPOS providers continues to expand around one key word: Tablets. Shopkeep has seen threefold growth in the past three years, and PayAnywhere introduced a storefront tablet to offer business analytics as well as preferred pricing. Others are developing and implementing strategies to make their solutions “sticky” on the merchant side by introducing things that help drive more consumer business their way.  For example, Square’s move to ditch its Wallet and replace it with Order aims to create a seamless merchant/consumer experience using its mPOS platform and online ordering application to drive customers to Square merchants. Groupon’s Gnome has much the same purpose with Groupon offers and the merchants that consumers will visit to redeem them.

Here are the three key takeaways for this month:

1.  Pioneers in the mPOS space are looking for a leg up, aiming to offer merchants something more than tablets with nifty functionalities. Where such assets are available, this means mobilizing their consumer base. It also means integrating with digital wallet providers

2.  Going global is where a lot of additional venture money is being deployed. The Latin American market is seen as fertile ground for some of the more established players who are able to meet the payment method requirements of the area.

3.  Investors are betting big on big winners, with the focus seemingly on those with enough traction and capital to make going the distance tougher for the contenders. The goal seems to be to make the bigger guys with promise stronger and more capable of withstanding competition.

For a more detailed look at the ratings and rankings, click the download button below for a full copy of this month’s report.

View past mPOS Tracker reports by clicking here

THE MPOS PYRAMID MAY/JUNE 2014

It is worth noting that this ecosystem is moving quickly, and this report is by no means complete. Information about these players is available in varying degrees of completeness. Details about volumes and shipments – the information that everyone finds most valuable – is not publicly available. We plan to update this report on a monthly basis to include new entrants, and updates on the players profiled in the prior month’s report. We are also in the process of compiling and will report out aggregated information about shipments and volumes. We encourage you to contact us at mobilepos@pymnts.com if you would like to be included in this report and/or would like us to update your information as we have presented it.