苹果钱包蓄势待发瞄准移动端支付市场

2014-09-11 14:44:08来源：可可英语

　　While Apple’s move is certain to shake up the mobile wallet market, the company’s success isfar from guaranteed. And it comes at a time when the utility of digital wallets is being called intoquestion, even as other forms of mobile payments are taking off.

　　尽管苹果此举必然会引起移动钱包市场的震动，但苹果能否成功却远未确定。数字钱包的实用性究竟如何尚存疑问，而其他移动支付手段也正在逐渐兴起。

　　Indeed, there is no longer a mobile payments market, but rather, several mobile paymentsmarkets.

　　确实，这不是一个移动支付市场，而是好几个移动支付市场。

　　Mobile wallets, which were expected to take the world by storm, have languished in the past fewyears. Giants like Google, PayPal, wireless carriers, and major retail chains, as well aspromising startups like Square, have all struggled to make wallets popular. After years ofeffort, just $3.1 billion in purchases came from mobile wallets last year, according to JavelinStrategy, a research firm. That’s just a tiny fraction of the roughly $4.5 trillion in annual retailpayments in the United States.

　　本以为将如风暴般席卷全球的移动钱包，在过去几年中可谓命途多舛。谷歌(Google)、贝宝(Paypal)等巨头、无线运营商、大型连锁店，以及Square等前途光明的初创公司，在推广移动钱包上都步履维艰。根据研究公司Javelin Strategy的数据，在多年的努力后，通过移动钱包完成的交易额在去年仅有31亿美元。相对于美国去年零售交易额的大约4.5万亿美元来说，这只是极小的一部分。

　　The challenges have been myriad. Google’s Wallet has been hamstrung by the company’sinability to get enough partners—most notably merchants and credit card companies—onboard. Google also struggled to overcome roadblocks put up by some wireless carriers, whowere promoting the own rival wallet.

　　这其中遭遇的挑战数不胜数。由于谷歌无法找到足够的合作伙伴——尤其是商家和信用卡公司，公司的钱包产品萎靡不振。谷歌还难以克服某些无线运营商设置的障碍，后者也在推广自己的钱包类产品。

　　That service, which is backed by Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, struggled as well, firstbecause it was plagued by delays, and later, because of its ill-fated name: Isis. After theemergence of the violent jihadist group in Iraq by the same name earlier this year, the carriersannounced that they would ditch the brand. Just this week, CEO Mike Abbott announcedthat the service would be renamed Softcard.

　　而由威瑞森通讯(Verizon)、美国电话电报公司(AT&T)和T-Mobile开发的钱包服务也一样经历着困顿。起初是因为这项服务一直跳票，随后又因为那个倒霉的名字：Isis。随着今年早些时候拥有同样名字的伊拉克暴力圣战组织兴起，运营商宣布他们准备放弃这个品牌名。就在这周，Isis的首席执行官迈克o阿尔伯特宣布这项服务将更名为Softcard。

　　Square, for its part, pulled its Wallet app in May, replacing it with Order, an app that allowsusers to order ahead and skip the line at local restaurants.

　　而另一方面，Square在今年5月放弃了其钱包业务Wallet，推出了新产品Order，这项应用可以让顾客提前预定餐馆，免去了排队的烦恼。

　　From a consumer standpoint, all these efforts suffered from the same pitfalls: acceptance atmerchants was spotty and paying by phone was not necessarily more convenient than payingwith plastic.

　　从顾客的角度来看，这些努力都走入了同一个误区：并非所有商家都接受这种支付方式，而用手机支付也并没有比信用卡支付更方便，这让它显得可有可无。

　　Some analysts believe that Apple, with its market clout and experience designing consumerproducts, could change the dynamics. In particular, the inclusion of NFC technology in theiPhone, could encourage more merchants to upgrade their point-of-sale system so they canaccept mobile payments from both iPhones and the growing number of Android phones that arealso equipped with NFC.

　　一些分析家相信，拥有强大市场影响力、拥有丰富的设计消费品经验的苹果能够改变这一现状。尤其是包含NFC技术的iPhone会促使更多的商家升级他们的销售终端系统，从而接受iPhone以及越来越多同样配有NFC技术的安卓(Android)手机的移动支付。

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