One such company, Pi Mobile Technology, a mobile payment arm of Web portal PChome Online which, on 1 July, 2015, launched a shopping wall system that allows customers to make purchases by scanning the QR codes of products advertised on billboards and posters, wantchinatimes.com reports.
PChome chairman Jan Hung-tze said the shopping wall system makes it easier for merchants to sell their products, the source cites. Group-purchasing website Gomaji, meanwhile, launched a mobile payment app in 2014 that allows users to pay their bills with their mobile devices at partnering restaurants. Gomaji plans to expand its number of partner restaurants from the current 1,500 to about 8,000 by the end of 2015.
Taiwanese game developer Gamania Digital Entertainments mobile payment arm said in June, 2015 that it is also planning to expand its services from gaming to all aspects of daily life. Instant messaging app LINE will launch a taxi service in Taiwan in the near future, allowing users to pay taxi fares with the mobile LINE Pay money transfer and payment service.
Over 16 million people over the age of 11 in Taiwan own a smartphone or tablet computer, and the number has surged by 17 million from January - Februaty 2015, according to the latest data released by the Innovative Digitech-Enabled Applications and Services Institute of the Institute for Information Industry.
Private consumption in Taiwan totaled USD 273 billion in 2014, according to the governments statistics office, whereas cash transaction business in Taiwan is estimated at around USD 160 billion per year, according to a survey by US-based marketing researcher AC Nielsen, a figure that is seen an indicator of great potential in the mobile payment market.
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