It is no longer a picture of future life. Taiwanese users can call taxi and collect loyalty points with Nokia’s new NFC phones since Mid-September!
It has been a (long) while since last article. Easycard continues to gain popularity after the card issuance volume surpassed number of habitants in February, now about 27 million of cards are in circulation. Although it is still not a surprising ratio compared to Octopus card in Hong Kong (7 million residents, 24 million cards issued!), Easy card and Taiwanese operators are already planning on the next step toward NFC.
Nonetheless, it can never be bad to start with something less complicated. Along with the NFC device launch, Nokia Taiwan cooperated with the biggest taxi company on the island, Taiwan Taxi, to launch NFC call taxi services and a series of promotional campaign, including NFC loyalty point collecting by tags deployed inside taxis circulating in Taipei. (See news here)
Toro developed the mobile wallet app, but didn’t participate much in the marketing campaign. And here’s what came as a surprise when we took taxi one day:
The poster says you need to collect three colors to win the price and the three models supported, etc. But the only thing we were concerned about was where they put the tag!
Here it is, printed with some descriptions, sticking in the back of the poster. Oh, no, I will never tell you what color this tag is!
It feels quite unreal to see the poster in a random taxi you picked up on the street. NFC is right here! Although some might say, it’s still easier to find a taxi on the street than a call taxi tag, or the loyalty thing can’t really compete with other factors that affect one’s phone purchasing decision…etc.
However, it’s just a start, and the situation is that this is a handset maker launching their own NFC mobile wallet for phones which don’t support secure element. It will surely not be the only mobile wallet on the island. And NFC will always need to come out with services, so just take a seat, and get ready for the wallet war!
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