Worldwide mobile payment transaction values will rocket 44 per cent during 2013, to $235.4 billion, although low adoption of NFC technology is slowing some markets – particularly North America – according to research firm Gartner.

The number of mobile payment users worldwide is also growing fast, projected to reach 245.2 million in 2013 – a near 50 million increase from 2012.

“We expect global mobile transaction volume and value to average 35 per cent annual growth between 2012 and 2017, and we are forecasting a market worth $721 billion with more than 450 million users by 2017,” said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner.

Asia’s transaction value is expected to grow 38 per cent in 2013 to reach $74 billion. Deployments in developed markets (such as South Korea and Singapore) and in developing markets (India) are expected to drive the region’s growth.

Gartner calculates Asia will overtake Africa to become the largest region by transaction value, reaching $165 billion, by 2016. Africa’s transaction value is forecast to reach $160 billion by that time.

It’s not all good news for the mobile money industry though. Gartner forecasts North America’s transaction value to grow 53 per cent in 2013, reaching $37 billion, but the research firm has in fact lowered its forecast for the total transaction value over the 2012-2017 forecast period due to lower-than-expected growth in 2012 – especially in North America and Africa.

One of the drags on growth has been the low adoption of NFC payment services. In fact, Gartner has reduced its projected NFC transaction value through the forecast period, largely on account that some high-profile services – such as Google Wallet and Isis – are struggling to gain traction.

The research firm forecasts that NFC will account for only about 2 per cent of total transaction value in 2013 and 5 per cent of the total transaction value in 2017.

Gartner does, however, provide some room for NFC optimism, expecting NFC transaction values to grow “somewhat” from 2016 when penetration of NFC mobile phones and contactless readers increases.

Other Gartner predictions are that money transfers and merchandise purchases will account for about 71 per cent and 21 per cent of total transaction value, respectively, in 2013.

However, worldwide, Gartner says that people are not purchasing as much because the buying experience on mobile devices has yet to be optimised. People are spending more via online e-commerce services and at retail outlets. Merchandise purchases account for about 23 percent of the total value forecast for 2017.

Moreover, money transfer value continues to increase because users are transacting much more frequently (although at lower values) due to the wider availability of services and to transaction costs that are lower than those of traditional bank services.

Gartner forecasts that mobile money transfer will account for almost 69 per cent of the global mobile transaction market by 2017.