After the robust sales clocked in via mobile commerce this past holiday season, it is not surprising that m-commerce and m-payments have been identified as two breakthrough tech categories by a Chetan Sharma survey.

Respondents believe that financial institutions such as Visa will drive the payments and commerce space, with operators, startups, and Google also influential.

Certainly this past holiday season illustrates the potential for these categories. IBM Smarter Commerce reports that online sales grew by 16.4% on Christmas Day compared to 2010, with 18.3% of all online sessions on retailers’ sites initiated from a mobile device, representing a 118% increase from 8.4% the previous year.

The iPad led all Christmas Day 2011 device traffic at 7%, followed by the iPhone at 6.4% and Android at 5%. The share of online sales from mobile devices reached 14.4%, almost triple the 5.3% from last year.

Lacking Consumer Protections

Merchants, though, will have to be prepared for disputes that will inevitable result from some of these sales. They will also have to deal with heightened expectations on the part of consumers, used to protections afforded by credit cards. The protections consumers receive will vary depending on their wireless carrier's policies and what's in their cell phone contract, according to an analysis by Consumers Union shortly before the start of the holiday season.

AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless have told Consumers Union that they provide ample protections for consumers. However, Consumers Union found that the protections these carriers provide fall short of what consumers get when they use credit cards and debit cards.