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6.1 Mobile Commerce: Concepts, Landscape, Attributes, Drivers, Applications, and Benefits 169

The Results Mobile commerce has its own framework, attributes
landscape, concepts, and terminology. These provide many
Despite the economic problems of 2008–2012, Hertz has benefits. For an overview, see the 2:45 min video titled
retained the number one position in the car rental industry. “What is M-Commerce” at youtube.com/watch?v=QtpTT
Its earnings, which declined in 2008 and 2009, rebounded pgpELg.
between 2010 and 2014. Hertz did better than most of its One of the clearest trends in computing and e-commerce
competitors. Its stock market share price, which bottomed is that mobile computing is increasing exponentially. Each
out in 2009, more than tripled in 2010 and continued to climb year, Gartner Inc. compiles an annual list of the top ten stra-
from 2011 to 2014. The company is expanding its operations tegic technology trends that have the potential to offer
and maintaining an excellent reputation among customers, numerous benefits to individuals, businesses, and IT organi-
due in part to its mobile applications. zations during the following 3 years. Mobile computing top-
Sources: Based on Barris (2014), Gingiss (2015), and ics are listed in the 2010–2016 reports.
hertz.com (accessed April 2016).

Basic Concepts, Magnitude, and the Landscape
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE CASE
Mobile commerce (m-commerce), also known as m- business,
The Hertz case illustrates several mobile applications refers to conducting e-commerce by using mobile devices
in the transportation industry that can help improve and wireless networks. Activities include B2C, B2B, m-gov-
both customer service and the company’s operations. ernment, and m-learning transactions, as well as the transfer
The applications are run on mobile devices and sup- of information and money. Like regular EC applications,
ported by a wireless network. (Both topics are dis- m-commerce is an electronic transaction conducted by using
cussed in Section 6.2.) The mobile technology is based mobile devices via the Internet, corporate intranets, private
on a set of unique attributes (Section 6.1) that enable communication lines, or over other wireless networks. For
the use of many applications (Sections 6.3–6.7). example, paying for an item in a vending machine or pay
The Hertz case is only one example of the impact of taxes with an iPhone is considered m-commerce. M-commerce
emerging mobile and wireless technologies on busi- provides an opportunity to deliver new services to existing
ness and electronic commerce (EC). In this chapter, we customers and to attract new customers to EC anytime, any-
explore a number of these emerging mobile and wire- where. Initially, the small screen size and slow bandwidth
less technologies as well as their potential applications limited the usefulness to consumers. However, this situation
in the commercial and societal arenas. The chapter is changing rapidly due to the widespread use of smartphones
also deals with the mobile enterprise, location-based and tablet computers. In addition, now consumers are more
services, and ubiquitous computing, which are cutting- accepting of the handheld culture. Furthermore, the adoption
edge technologies. of m-commerce is accelerating due to the spread of 3G and
4G networks, (and soon G5). Finally, free Wi-Fi Internet
access in many locations helps.
Note that m-commerce is quite different from traditional
e-commerce and frequently uses specialized business models
6.1 MOBILE COMMERCE: CONCEPTS, (see mobilinfo.com/Mcommerce/differences.htm). This
LANDSCAPE, ATTRIBUTES, DRIVERS, results in many new applications and a change in the relation-
APPLICATIONS, AND BENEFITS ship between buyers and sellers (see ibm.com/software/gen-
servers/commerce/mobile).
As described in Chapter 1, businesses are becoming digital. In
addition, many enterprises are going multilocational and glob- The Magnitude of M-Commerce
ally, and the need for mobile communication is increasing rap-
idly (see the closing case in Chapter 5). According to GSMA According to a 2013 eMarketer study, by 2017, approximately
(2013), the mobile industry is already a major contributor to 25% of all online retail transactions in the USA will take place
the global economy. More than half of the world’s population on mobile devices (reported by mashable.com/2013/04/24/
already own mobile phones, many of which are smartphones. mcommerce-sales-forecast). Forrester Research forecasts
Obviously, all the above are drivers of mobile commerce. that m-commerce will top $38 billion in 2014 (reported
For definitions, topics, key issues, and so forth, see mobile by Fiegerman 2014 at mashable.com/2014/05/12/mobile-
info.com/mcommerce. commerce-sales). A 2014 InMobi report found that 83% of