Apple Pay Gains Momentum With Estimated 250 Million Users, 200% Transaction Growth Predicted Next Year

[MacRumors]

An estimated 31 percent of iPhone users have made a purchase with Apple Pay in the past year, up from 25 percent a year ago, according to a new Apple Pay estimates shared today by Loup Ventures analyst Gene Munster.

Apple Pay now has an estimated 252 million users, equating to 31 percent of the active installed iPhone base, according to Munster.

Apple does not provide official details on how many people use Apple Pay, but in a recent earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that there were upwards of 1 billion Apple Pay transactions in Q3 2018, triple the amount from a year ago.

Based on these figures combined with past Apple reports of yearly Apple Pay growth, Munster expects transaction growth of 200 percent over the course of the next 12 months.

Bank adoption of Apple Pay is also growing steadily, and during the same earnings call, Apple announced that 4,900 banks support the feature. The number of banks supporting Apple Pay has increased by 1,701 since the December quarter, marking a 55 percent growth in North America, 141 percent in Asia, and 370 percent in Europe.

Munster believes that just 20 percent of global smartphone users use their phone as a wallet, a number that he expects to rise to 80 percent in the future.

Apple is well-poised to position the iPhone as the premium digital wallet on the market given that it's the only digital wallet option "with all five payment pillars" defined as mobile, desktop, in-app, peer to peer, and point of sale.

Munster says Apple Pay is much more popular overseas, with 85 percent of users being international compared to 15 percent in the United States. Apple Pay is estimated to have 38 million users in the U.S. and 215 million in the 20+ other countries where Apple Pay is available.

Apple Pay works in retail locations with the Apple Watch and iPhone, and in apps and on the web with iPhone, iPad, and Mac. As of iOS 11.3, Apple also supports Apple Pay Cash payments, a feature that is currently limited to the United States.

Apple Pay is available in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong, France, Russia, China, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Taiwan, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, UAE, Brazil, Ukraine, Norway, and Poland at the current time, and it is also set to expand to Germany later this year.

Article Link: Apple Pay Gains Momentum With Estimated 250 Million Users, 200% Transaction Growth Predicted Next Year

 

[OC40]

Apple Pay for the win.

 

[PotatoLeekSoup]

Apple Pay was absurdly underestimated at launch.

1) builds lock-in
2) more secure
3) send & receive cash from friends
4) whatever else I'm forgetting

 

[Fmello]

How much did Apple Pay generate for the company last year?

 

[Shanghaichica]

That’s great especially considering that there are a lot of places it’s not available yet.

I use Apple Pay all the time. Almost everyday.

 

[VolceOntra]

I just need Target & Chipotle to support it in-store.

 

[GroningenNL]

Apple Pay will be available in Germany, a country were most people are paying with real money instead of plastic.

Still waiting for release in the Netherlands.

 

[itsmilo]

Meanwhile Germany is like „EVERY BANK MAKE THEIR OWN MOBILE PAYMENT SOLUTION“ which no one is going to use cuz cash for LIFE

 

[Saipher]

I would use Apple Pay way more often if more places accepted it.

 

[akidd]

I think I’ve used twice since it came to the UK and my bank adopted it. Asked for pin both times. I suspect growth is in countries moving from signing to contactless which have been still on pin. I don’t bother with phone as card is much easier: as I said growth may be in markets where movedment is from pre contactless cards.

 

[PotatoLeekSoup]

I just need Target & Chipotle to support it in-store.

I think Target and Walmart are going to hold out since they want all your data.

Costco now accepts it! Just did it for the first time yesterday.

 

[MadeByApple]

I hate that how peer to peer is set up. Using iMessage doesn’t feel like the best approach.

I wish there was a way to open the wallet app and send money through the wallet. It would be cool to have it set up like AirDrop.

AirDrop cash to each other would be nice.

 

[joonyaboy]

Every place I shop uses it except Publix. If they got on board I’d never carry my wallet with me again.

 

[sidewinder3000]

I’ll stop short of saying that we here in America are “pathetic”, but there is something discouraging about how behind the times we often are when it comes to technology and changing over to new platforms or systems. Our Internet speeds lag far behind many other industrialized countries, and our slow-trickle adoption of alternative/mobile payments makes us feel almost like a nation of grandparents.

Whatever stories like this pop up, I always wonder what the root cause is. Is it because our corporations are greedier, and try to ring every bit of value they can get out of old capital before switching to new systems? Or do Europe and parts of Asia have governments that are more active in passing legislation that forces change? If there’s anybody that has any real insight in this area, I’m curious.

 

[scartart]

I think I’ve used twice since it came to the UK and my bank adopted it. Asked for pin both times. I suspect growth is in countries moving from signing to contactless which have been still on pin. I don’t bother with phone as card is much easier: as I said growth may be in markets where movedment is from pre contactless cards.

That happened to me too the first couple of times. Since then it has never asked for a PIN and I normally use it a couple of times a week across two different cards. Just as easy and as fast as with the physical card and the retailer can't track me.

 

[sidewinder3000]

I hate that how peer to peer is set up. Using iMessage doesn’t feel like the best approach.

I wish there was a way to open the wallet app and send money through the wallet. It would be cool to have it set up like AirDrop.

AirDrop cash to each other would be nice.

I do wish there was a way that you could initiate payments via the Wallet app. Also, if you wound up sending money to someone who doesn’t have their Apple Pay wallet set up yet, it would give them explicit instructions on what to do with links that would make it super easy .

 

[Shanghaichica]

I think I’ve used twice since it came to the UK and my bank adopted it. Asked for pin both times. I suspect growth is in countries moving from signing to contactless which have been still on pin. I don’t bother with phone as card is much easier: as I said growth may be in markets where movedment is from pre contactless cards.

Why is it asking you for a pin? I’ve never been asked for a pin and I use it almost everyday. I’m in the UK.

 

[sidewinder3000]

That happened to me too the first couple of times. Since then it has never asked for a PIN and I normally use it a couple of times a week across two different cards. Just as easy and as fast as with the physical card and the retailer can't track me.

Some retailers ask for a PIN, others don’t. I believe it has to do with how they set their payment terminals up. Also, it has to do with whether you are using a pure credit card or one of those debit cards that also has a Visa or MasterCard logo. In those cases, I am sure that they would rather have you use the debit card function because I believe the fees are cheaper for them.

Moving forward, I would like to find a way to use a debit card, but never have to enter a PIN. Maybe I could call my bank, or there is a setting somewhere that says “never use PIN function”? If anybody knows of how to do that, please chime in.

 

[NeuralControl]

Apple Pay is such a convenient and pleasant feature, especially compared to using the chip credit card readers. I use it whenever possible and really wish more retail locations in the US would use.

 

[Shanghaichica]

Some retailers asked for a pin, others don’t. I believe it has to do with how they set their systems up. Also, it has to do with whether you are using a pure credit card or one of those debit cards that also has a Visa or MasterCard logo. In those cases, I am sure that they would rather have you use the debit card function because I believe the fees are cheaper for them.

Moving forward, I would like to find a way to use a debit card, but never have to enter a PIN. Maybe I could call my bank, or there is a setting somewhere that says never use the PIN function? If anybody knows of how to do that, please chime in.

I use it with my debit card almost everyday. Have been since 2016 and I’ve never been asked for a pin.

 

[Geert76]

Apple Pay will be available in Germany, a country were most people are paying with real money instead of plastic.

Still waiting for release in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands?

Do we even exist for Apple?

 

[MBAir2010]

the Microsoft Store and Samsung phone kiosk now excepts Apple Pay

 

[thenewyorkgod]

I just need Target & Chipotle to support it in-store.

that would only work if we could link our redcard to get the 5%

 

[sidewinder3000]

I think Target and Walmart are going to hold out since they want all your data.

Costco now accepts it! Just did it for the first time yesterday.

The fact that target and Walmart don’t accept Apple Pay makes me like those stores less and less. But I’m guessing they won’t make a change until it starts to hurt their bottom line.
[doublepost=1533845310][/doublepost]

that would only work if we could link our redcard to get the 5%

One killer feature that would take Apple Pay to the next level would be if you could link your rewards cards/clubs directly to the transaction itself. For example, Walgreens has a rewards card that you can store in your Apple wallet, but you have to scan it separately, before you scan for your payment. I think it would be amazing if simply using Apple Pay at Walgreens would automatically trigger your Walgreens rewards card, once you set it up that way in Settings.

 

[tmiw]

I’ll stop short of saying that we here in America are “pathetic”, but there is something discouraging about how behind the times we often are when it comes to technology and changing over to new things. Our Internet speeds lag far behind many other industrialized countries, and our slow-trickle when it comes to adopting alternative/mobile payments makes us feel almost like a nation of grandparents.

Whatever stories like this pop up, I always wonder what the root cause is. Is it because our corporations are greedier, and try to ring every bit of value they can get out of old capital before switching to new systems? Or do Europe and parts of Asia have governments that are more active in passing legislation that forces change? If there’s anybody that has any real insight in this area, I’m curious.

This is admittedly anecdotal but I've seen at least several Americans online claim that China's WeChat and Alipay were far easier to use than anything NFC based. Based on that, it wouldn't surprise me if the US ultimately went with some QR based system. Then again, those two are accepted by nearly everyone there so there's no worry about whether you can use them.

Also, the EMV liability shift wasn't a strong enough motivator, IMO. Not when the US was one of the last countries to adopt it (meaning that the crooks already knew how to do online fraud and could easily switch to it long before the majority of stores had chip support). It really should have been made mandatory in order to continue being able to accept cards at all.

(This also isn't even getting into the fact that there's been so much vitriol towards the card networks by merchants that many aren't going to do much more than the absolute minimum. In fact, most of them--especially smaller merchants--still prefer you pay in cash. Fix that problem and acceptance might get better.)