It gives me immense pleasure to share the experience of Mobile Commerce conferences held over the past years and the current 4th International MCB Mobile Conference. It just looks yesterday when the idea was first discussed to organise the country's first large-scale mobile commerce conference in the closing months of 2007.
By the Grace of Almighty Allah, Total Communication managed to organise the first International Mobile Commerce Conference on April 2, 2008. With the backing of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and State Bank of Pakistan, the inaugural conference was a big success and participants and sponsors were asking when the next edition will be held.
The next two episodes were steps forward from the launching pad of 2008. The 2010 conference had a title sponsor that shows the faith of the industry, especially the banking industry, in the events organised by Total Communications. The buzz generated by Mobile Commerce conference hit the industry and now it is an established event on the technology calendar of the country.
This year PTA and SBP are organisers of the conference along with Total Communications. Industry has showed its interest and confidence and the conference again has a title sponsor. Major players of the mobile banking sector are participating. Technology companies are also there as usual.
With the ever increasing penetration and popularity of mobile commerce across the globe that has seen double digit consistent annual growth over the last few years, the phenomenon is now taking hold of Pakistani market as well. Banks are offering the mobile banking services as another alternate always and readily available channel to its vast market. With the innovation in technology even non-bank account holders are benefiting from the services offered by m-commerce platform.
Areas covered by the mobile commerce platform have now been much more diversified than ever before. Mobile is now being used for purchase of air time and ticketing, bills payments, content downloads, banking transactions and stock trading. Industry is working to make mobile phone to be the most used channel of transactions by end of the decade.
Total Communication will continue to play its part of bringing relevant stakeholders at a common platform on regular basis and share the latest trends, technologies, ideas and policies with the industry. We thank PTA and SBP for their ever-presence support. Many thanks to the title and other sponsors, who continue to show their commitment and faith year after year. Hope to see you all at this and next year conference.