A recent report from Juniper Research has found that mobile ticketing is growing fast. The market is set to triple in volume over the next four years.

Mobile ticketing users store a ticket on their mobile device for later redemption. These tickets serve as a substitute for a traditional paper based ticket or even an e-ticket that needs to be printed out. When redeeming the mobile ticket, users simply need to show their handset to the ticket checker at the entry point to the venue.

At present, only about 1 in 20 consumers worldwide make use of mobile ticketing facilities, which means that the total number of users accessing these service is about 230 million.

Analysts at Juniper have projected that by 2015 this ratio wil go up to 1 in 8 and the actual number of mobile ticketing users will be about 750 million. It is also expected that the next two years will be crucial for the growth of this market.

Mobile ticketing services are already fairly popular in Japan, Central and Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. In these places, mobile ticketing is widely used to purchase tickets for transport, sporting events and entertainment.

Tickets, once booked, are delivered to the user in a variety of ways such as through SMS, mobile Web, bar codes, near field communication (NFC) and smartphone apps. It is essential for advertisers and vendors who wish to make use of this opportunity to plan their strategy well.

Total Mobile Phone Users (%) Who Use Mobile Ticketing Split by 8 Key Regions 2015

Far East mobile users are expected to continue leading the way in terms of adoption of this technology, even in 2015. Western European users are expected to be the second largest user group adopting mobile ticketing technology.

Howard Wilcox, author of the report says, “Mobile technology is moving the ticket machine into our pockets. Our research demonstrated that mobile ticketing will change the way that many people buy and obtain their regular, every day tickets that are mostly printed at the moment.”