WCDMA services are penetrating markets more slowly than analysts had first anticipated, according to the latest assessment from ABI Research. The data-centric mobile communications platform looked set to enjoy rapid market success, but according to Lance Wilson, ABI Research's director of wireless research, "We have refined our appraisal of GSM/GPRS/EDGE versus WCDMA. The uptake of WCDMA is not likely to be as rapid as was once thought. It will show good growth, but there is still a lot of life left in GSM." "The rollout of WCDMA will continue," adds Wilson, "but service providers are also upgrading their GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks, so it will take a little longer for WCDMA to become the ubiquitous standard in the GSM family of technologies." Noting that "It's been difficult to gauge the uptake of WCDMA because there are so many factors affecting it," Wilson attributes the slower pace of adoption to issues of greater expense and of a lack of compelling applications. "The services being offered to the customer have not quite caught up with the technology," he says.
The world of eCommerce payments has evolved. As we look toward the latter half of this decade, we're witnessing a transformation in how digital commerce operates, with a clear shift toward localized payment solutions within a global marketplace. The numbers tell a compelling story. According to Juniper Research's latest analysis, global eCommerce transactions are set to reach $11.4 trillion by 2029, marking a 63 percent increase from $7 trillion in 2024. This growth isn't just about volume – it's about fundamental changes in how people pay for goods and services online. Perhaps most striking is the projected dominance of Alternative Payment Methods (APMs), which are expected to account for 69 percent of global transactions by 2029, with 360 billion transactions processed through these channels. eCommerce Payments Market Development What makes this shift particularly interesting is how it reflects the democratization of digital commerce. Traditional card-based systems ar...