Study: Mobile electronic payments market taking off

Many recent studies have found that the mobile ecommerce market, which accounts for approximately 10 percent of all online sales, is in line to increase significantly through the end of the decade. A recent report by MarketsandMarkets was the latest to convey these positive predictions, estimating that the mobile payments market will grow to $279 billion by 2018.

"There are significant changes occurring in ecommerce, one of the biggest being an increasing shift toward tablet computers and mobile phones," Tally Rabinovich, CEO of ecommerce company Izzonet.com, said in a recent interview, adding that retailers should implement mobile websites that "look as good and work as well on mobile devices as they do on PCs."

The MarketsandMarkets study projected enormous growth for mobile sales, including a compound annual growth rate of 82.4 percent from 2013 to 2018. Mobile ecommerce expenditures are expected to increase from $13.8 billion to $278.9 billion during that time frame.

An earlier report by eMarketer found that mcommerce sales experienced 81 percent year-over-year growth from 2011 to 2012, to reach nearly $25 billion. Mobile electronic payments now account for 11 percent of all retail ecommerce sales in the United States, according to the study.