Consumers want ubiquity, and is the basis for why Whatsapp was able to drive a premium valuation from facebook. FB messenger has ˜200m users while Whatsapp has ˜˜600m. In order for FB to stay relevant in the face of WeChat + Line (who have already launched mobile payment solutions) it had to beef up its relative scale (Line has ˜600m users, WeChat ˜450m) (side note: interesting that Viber doesn’t have anything yet considering that they’ve got ˜600m users). In this period of tech adoption/ transformation, its interesting that we’ve got so many different apps which address such a simple and logical need (payments). It seems like the future of payments is relevant only to the OS (similar to how texting + phone calls are considered utilities on a regular cell phone). The only reason why Skype + Viber etc exist is to capitalize upon Wi-fi utilization in the face of (relatively) expense data costs imposed by cell phone carriers. At the present time, the afermentioned apps are most poised to capitalize upon mobile payment integration because users have developed a sense of trust and familiarity with those apps. As i mentioned above, the future of mobile payments will be native to the OS. What is the technology best positioned to realize this ubiquity? Bitcoin.

Source for user statistics: http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/how-many-people-use-chat-apps/