Wireless Internet adoption is taking off more slowly in the United States than in some European and Asian markets, but brokerage is emerging as a driving application for adoption and usage, according to a study by Boston-based Yankee Group.
The research company predicts financial applications will be accessed by fifty per cent of the 74 million wireless Internet users in 2005.
The report carried out by The Yankee Group's Mobile Commerce Strategies Planning Service estimates that over 20 per cent of today’s 2.5 million users of wireless Internet services in the United States regularly access brokerage and other financial content. Survey results suggest an addressable market of 13 million people in the United States who conceive a need to trade wirelessly.
The earliest brokers to engage customers with a wireless offering had some success stealing high-value customers from their competitors; and as a result, all brokerages, at least for defensive reasons, are rushing to enable wireless access, says the report.
Author of the Report, Adam Zawel, notes: "Perhaps more important than trading volume, we suspect that wireless access can be one more way of convincing customers to keep assets with, or move assets to, a particular financial institution."