Applications and Innovations in Smartphone - Essay Example

Studies conducted by eDigitalResearch and Portaltech shows that customers are using smartphones for various purposes, such as shopping, browsing the internet, doing research on products and many other things. The report also revealed that customers are using smartphones mainly for e-commerce and web browsing. Study shows that Smartphone has increased the power of the consumer in terms shopping preference and retailer location. The study has revealed that Smartphone has increased mobile application by 15 percent in last three years (Retail Customer Experience, 2011).

TIO Networks has established a partnership with PG&E Corp in order to give the opportunity to Smartphone users to pay bills and monitor account activity by using mobile applications. The President of TIO Network has identified that smartphones can be used to provide a unified consumer experience through all channels. Mobile bill payment through Smartphones was hit in the USA market and the company is expecting double-digit growth for forthcoming years. Smartphone has increased the scope of portable mobile bill payment for users.

The company has said smartphones can be used as an online channel to pay any kind of bill such as mobile bill, electricity bill (Wester, 2011). Apple has revolutionized the concept of smartphones by implementing state of art technology in their offering. They not only incorporated unfussiness in product design but incorporated multiple applications such as easy file-sharing for users, jawbone’s audio gear, ebook reading facility, social media platform, music instrument learning platform, blood pressure calculator and many other fun applications (Burrows, 2012).

Paypal has introduced a new application, named PayPal Instore in order to distribute NFC stickers through retail partners. The application was developed for Smartphone users in order to help them access NFC ready points through their mobile devices. Customers can download Paypal applications through iPhone or other Android smartphones and then they can swipe the tag through the sales terminal. A smartphone can be used to display not only purchases but other discount offers also. Paypal is banking on smartphones to increase the account open ratio in near future.

Catrine Rhenberg (PayPal's Head of marketing in the European region) has encouraged Smartphone users to do all Paypal transactions through the device. Market penetration of smartphones is also backed by the NFC-pilot program of Paypal (Wester, 2011). AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA have launched a POS application for Smartphone users. In the new POS model vendors such as Ingenico, ViVOtech, VeriFone and Equinox Payments worked in synchronization with Isis Mobile Commerce to facilitate Smartphone integration.

Credit card issuers’ such as Barclaycard, Chase and Cap One have enabled their card application in the Smartphone. VeriFone has given the opportunity to Smartphone users to do online shopping and physical point of purchase through mobile devices. Smartphones are complemented with mobile payment options, GPRS, loyalty bonus tracking, customized social media applications and other value-added services (Wester, 2012). Smartphone has also created a platform for "digital signage" to marketers.

"Digital signage" is a form of static and passive form of communication. Digital signage is created in order to show relevant advertising messages to customers (Armstrong, 2012). A smartphone can help advertisers to increase the dynamics of their communication model. Applying integrated marketing communication through smartphones can increase the probability of generating awareness.