Near field communication (NFC) in smartphones could be a bigger opportunity for advertising than for payment transactions.
That is according to Juniper Research, which said coupons and smart posters will have a significant impact on how consumers transact in the future.
Howard Wilcox, senior analyst at the organisation, commented: "Yes coupons, loyalty and smart posters are the key elements here and will have a growing impact on how people make purchases in future.
"The ability to, for example, wave your phone next to an N Mark hotspot in an advert, download a music sample, movie trailer or product details and then buy it possibly aided by a special coupon offer will be attractive for consumers."
Mr Wilcox said NFC marks the retail marketing opportunity, and claimed that the potential for this trend is higher than the payments opportunity.
In other news, research recently published by Nielsen latest has shown that 38 per cent of all US mobile phone owners now have a smartphone, with the iPhone experiencing the highest increase in recent months.