The market for near field communication (NFC)-ready point of sale (POS) terminals has continued to show strong momentum last year, with annual shipments reaching an estimated 9.5 million units worldwide, according to a new research report.

The Berg Insight report said the attach rate for NFC was highest in EU28+2 countries and North America, where 80 per cent and 75 per cent respectively of the POS terminals shipped featured NFC.

NFC was also a very popular feature in many other major markets worldwide, including Brazil, Turkey and China. On a global basis, two out of every five POS terminals that shipped in 2014 included NFC.

The report has forecast that the global installed base of NFC-ready POS terminals will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.4 per cent from 21.4 million units in 2014 to 74.9 million units in 2019.

More than 70 per cent of the world’s POS terminals will be NFC-ready in 2019, it said.

While the installed base of NFC-ready POS terminals has grown quickly, the contactless technology has in many cases not been activated. This is now changing and the report has estimated that approximately nine million POS terminals accepted contactless payments with Visa payWave, MasterCard PayPass or UnionPay Quickpass at the end of last year.

Lars Kurkinen, senior analyst, said: “The sharp increase marks yet another milestone in the industry’s move towards contactless payments and mobile wallet services.

“The data shows that merchants have started to embrace NFC, which up until now has been a missing piece in the puzzle.” - TradeArabia News Service