Target Is Developing Its Own mobile Wallet

Target Corporation TGT is in the early stages of developing its own mobile wallet, according to three people familiar with the news that spoke with Reuters. This may signal a possible threat to new players entering the online mobile payment space with companies such as Apple Inc. AAPL and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. WMT. Shares of Target ended Thursday's amid volatile trading. Target's shares closed down at 1.99 percent at $72.33 with 6,742,509 shares being traded. Target's mobile wallet would allow customers to pay for goods by using an app on their mobile phones. According to two of the sources, Target has not committed to launch the product but the mobile wallet could launch as early as next year, but it is too early to predict. The sources also commented that Target's management has already decided to partner with credit card firms and work toward processing transactions using scanning technology that communicates with payment terminals. Mobile commerce revenues are forecasted to surge to $142 billion in 2016, according to new report from Forrester's U.S. Mobile Phone And Tablet Commerce Forecast. The report indicated that from 2015 to 2020, predicted mobile commerce transactions will exceed $115 billion in 2015 and skyrocket to $142 billion next year. Target's entry to compete with its mobile wallet would only intensify competition in what already is a crowded market space, challenging Apple's Apple Pay, Alphabet Inc GOOGL Android Pay and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (KRX:005930) Samsung Pay. The fourth-largest U.S. retailer is a member of Merchant Customer Exchange which is currently developing a mobile wallet called CurrentC. The app hasn't launched yet. Apple just announced its new partnership on Thursday to bring Apple Pay to China. Apple generates .15 percent in revenue on all credit card transactions through Apple Pay and half of one cent on debit card transactions, according to a Jefferies analyst report from last year. Wal-Mart began testing its new mobile wallet payment system on Thursday in all of its Bentonville, Arkansas area stores, where the company is headquartered. Wal-Mart will launch the payment feature in all 4,500 of its stores in the U.S. in the first half of next year. Target Corporation has a 52-week high of $85.81 and the 52-week low is $68.15. The company has a market cap of $44,559 million and with the number of outstanding shares estimated to be 616,051,610 shares.