New data from fintech analysts, Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) forecasts that mobile and wearable ticket purchases will exceed 14 billion by 2018, accounting for 54% of total digital ticket sales across transport and events sectors. Juniper estimated that the total number of transactions via mobile devices will exceed PC-based ticket sales for the first time in 2017, driven by metro and air ticket purchases.

The research found that globally, metro, bus and airline app ticketing is the most established in terms of deployment and user adoption, followed by events ticketing. By 2020, Juniper forecasts that the number of digital ticketing users across all platforms will exceed 1.8 billion, with mobile NFC accounting for 215 million unique users.

It found that the majority of mobile ticketing deployments, especially in markets such as North America, continues to be dominated by app-based ticketing services, using visual or QR-code authentication. However, mobile contactless ticketing is fast becoming the de-facto mode of payment for metro and bus ticketing in selected cities, especially in Europe. The research also found that with the increased integration of chatbots, ticketing providers can offer a wealth of services directly to consumers via their dedicated app.

“While the potential opportunities for consumers are clear, the use of chatbots also aids ticketing providers, providing insight into user preferences and demands” noted research author Nitin Bhas.

However, Juniper argued that chatbots in ticketing will be primarily restricted to informational services such as tickets and seats availability, public transport arrivals or timetable enquiries, with the majority of consumers wary of conducting financial transactions. However, this resistance is likely to diminish over the next five years with ticketing transactions conducted via messaging-based chatbots reaching $6 billion by 2022.