mPOS 3.0 (2022 Mobile POS Study)

mPOS 3.0 (2022 Mobile POS Study)

Historically, smaller retailers (Tier III) have been the most aggressive adopters of Mobile POS, mainly due to costs, user friendliness, flexibility, and the fact that they are seriously under-served by the leading POS vendors. As a result, in 2021 retailers with less than 10 locations were responsible for 64.2% of the installed base.

Going forward, we expect the story to change a bit, as Tier I retailers have begun to embrace mPOS in a much bigger way with new customer journeys. This started before COVID-related shutdowns had a disastrous impact upon retail and hospitality in general, and small mom & pop merchants in particular. IHL estimates that approximately 338,000 small retail and restaurant locations closed as a result of these shutdowns. These closures resulted in a sharp decline in the mobile POS installed base for small merchants.

We named this mPOS 3.0 as there is a new level of maturity in systems and decisions for enterprise retailers. While consumer devices might look cooler, the need for enterprise class wi-fi and security with the explosion of IoT devices deployed has forced retailers to grow up. Also, that premium between enterprise class and consumer class is shrinking bringing many of these decisions to the forefront of CIO offices going forward. The customer of today and tomorrow are mobile and multi-channel causing retailers to adjust accordingly.

This research looks at the current state of Mobile POS in North America, the adoption rates of the various retail verticals, and the shipment and installed base details by type of device (Rugged Handheld, Non-Rugged Handheld, and Tablets). It includes market sizing, trends, and forecasts through 2026.

This study is designed for use by Private Equity Investors, Mobile POS Hardware and Software Providers, Service Providers, Maintenance Providers, Retailers and others who might have a vested interest in the North American Mobile Point-of-Sale Market.

Note, this study does not include share by vendor although it does discuss future retailer preferences. For detailed vendor share and forecasts we recommend our Mobile POS by Vendor research where we track the number of devices shipped by Apple, HP, Toshiba, Motorola, and others and our POS/mPOS ISV List