NFC phone sales to soar to 1.2b units

Sales of NFC (near field communication) 4G mobile phones may quadruple to 1.2 billion units in 2018, and NXP Semiconductors sees Chinese users as a huge market that will use their phones as mobile wallet. More than 275 million smartphones sold globally in 2013 were equipped with the NFC function, which helps smartphones and other electronic devices to communicate with each other. The sales of NFC-enabled phone are predicted to jump fourfolds globally to 1.2 billion units in 2018, according to research firm IHS Technology.