Point-of-sale is quietly undergoing its biggest infrastructure change in years: the “terminal” is no longer tethered to where fixed-line connectivity happens to be available.
Berg Insight’s latest outlook points to cellular connectivity as the enabling layer—helping businesses deploy electronic payments in places where traditional telecom build-out is uneven.
Berg Insight reports that the installed base of cellular POS terminals reached 184.0 million in 2025, with cellular connectivity being incorporated in 53% of POS devices shipped in 2025. Looking ahead, the analyst firm forecasts a 7.6% CAGR from 2025 to 2029, implying 247.0 million cellular POS terminals by the end of 2029.
This matters because payments adoption is not only about merchant willingness—it is also about whether terminals can reliably connect, provision, and settle transactions across expanding retail formats and geographies.
Cellular links reduce dependence on fixed lines, enabling rollouts to new market segments and more distributed locations, from pop-up retail to remote service counters. The same logic extends to contactless journeys.
In parallel, Berg Insight expects continued dominance of NFC capability. The firm forecasts the global installed base of NFC-ready POS terminals rising from 316.5 million in 2025 to 403.0 million in 2029, supported by a 6.2% CAGR. As a result, more than 97% of POS terminals will be NFC-ready in 2029, up from 92% in 2025.
Berg Insight also highlights a key software/UX theme: POS is increasingly “computer-like”. The Android POS terminal category has gained major momentum; Berg Insight’s Johan Fagerberg said that close to half of POS terminals sold in 2025 were Android POS terminals, naming vendors across the ecosystem.
Meanwhile, the market is moving on two tracks. Traditional POS continues to grow, but mPOS—where consumer devices such as smartphones and tablets act as POS endpoints—keeps pace. Berg Insight estimates 84.9 million mPOS terminals in 2025 and notes that NFC-ready mPOS reached 68.8 million the same year, with NFC penetration at 81% worldwide. For 2029, Berg Insight projects 96.7 million NFC-ready mPOS terminals (a CAGR of 8.9%), implying 93% penetration.
Yet mPOS faces competitive pressure from SoftPOS (accepting payments through standard iOS/Android devices). Berg Insight cautions that the number of smartphones running SoftPOS is still less than 15 million.
Cellular connectivity is the scale lever, NFC-ready hardware is the trust lever, and Android and (selectively) SoftPOS are reshaping the form factor—turning “POS” into an ecosystem rather than a single box.
