As is true with most topics, you cannot understand a trend in isolation. This proves to be especially accurate in the wireless industry where most great innovations are actually invented and developed overseas long before they reach North America. When they do make their way to the U.S., the services and technologies are typically different in terms of how they look, feel and work. This is also true in how customers use them. A loyalty play in a developed market may well be a make-or-break service in an emerging market.

One example of this comes from mobile payments. Still a nascent service, it is expected to reach 32.9 million users worldwide in 2008 and grow to 103.9 million in 2011, according to a study released today by Gartner. The mobile payment market in the U.S. still lags significantly behind the Asia-Pacific region where there will be 28 million projected users in 2008 -- 85% of the worldwide total. Western Europe is expected to have 499,000 users in 2008, while North America is projected to have only one million users.

The discrepancy is largely a factor of the market conditions. Carriers operating in emerging markets are often serving customers who don’t have a bank available or who only have limited payment options from the bank they do have. Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner, said in the report that in developed markets, mobile payment is likely to start as a loyalty scheme -- an extension of existing services. For emerging markets, where many consumers don’t have access to a PC, it may become the most viable alternative for electronic payments.

Asia is home to some of the most significant developing markets, such as China and India, with large numbers of mobile users and insufficient banking and payment infrastructure. The report indicated that Asia will continue to lead the way for mobile banking because of this, as well as the fact that it was the first region to launch services like this, led by the Philippines and Japan. From the end-user perspective, Asia’s mobile users are also most likely to accept new services, like mobile banking, without the hesitation that Americans often have.

According to Gartner analyst Tole Hart, the global discrepancy mainly comes down to the fact that North America has a more established nature of payment infrastructure and consumers here are more sensitive to security issues. It might just be a matter of perception, too. If consumers feel safe, they’ll adopt more, especially when it promotes convenience.

Nick Holland, a senior analyst covering mobile banking payments for Aite Group, which also released a study today on mobile banking and payments, said that global differences in mobile banking can also be accounted for by the variance in WAP-adoption, still the most popular method of mobile banking. Another reason is that many U.S. companies have opted to focus on credit unions instead of big banks to date. “There was a lot of activity around 2000 and 2001, but the phones and networks weren’t ready and the end users weren’t ready to use it either,” Holland said. “That was discarded around 2002. As of 2007, it is like mobile banking is brand new – like it has never happened before.”

That is true in the U.S., but a look at the global mobile banking landscape indicates that this is one trend that may actually be unique to North America.

Email me at sreedy@telephonyonline.com.