Apple Pay’s user base grew by 66 million in 2020.
(Statista)
According to the survey released in November 2020 and conducted from 2016 to 2020, the number of Apple Pay users worldwide has increased by well over 600% in just four years. With only 67 million users in 2016, Apple Pay wasn’t a very popular payment method at launch or in the first few years after it. However, the figures have increased to a massive 507 million users in 2020. If we compare 2019 and 2020 data, we can see that the use of Apple Pay has grown by almost 15%, from 441 to 507 million users worldwide.
Around 93% of US smartphones had access to Apple Pay in 2020.
(Pymnts)
Apple Pay growth in the US has been staggering in recent years. Only 39% of all iOS devices could use Apple Pay functionalities in 2015, but the number grew to nearly 93% in just five years. As older devices slowly get phased out, we’ll undoubtedly start reaching 100% soon. That said, adoption is not quite at the same level yet, and many people still use credit cards for payments instead of going for mobile wallets such as Apple Pay.
Over 48% of iOS users worldwide activated Apple Pay in 2019.
(Statista)
Apple Pay usage statistics from September 2019 show that 441 million people have activated Apple Pay. It’s a significant increase compared to the 33 percent usage reach in 2018, even more so than just nine percent of Apple users who activated the payment feature back in 2016.
The UK topped Apple Pay transactions in 2021, with 63% of people using it at least once in stores or restaurants.
(Statista)
As of August 2021, the United Kingdom tops a list of seventeen countries worldwide both for online payments and those made through the point of sale (POS) systems. According to Apple Pay statistics for the UK, the country ranked first when it comes to payments in stores, restaurants, and other point-of-sale systems, and its users made over a fifth of all online Apple Pay payments, too. The second on the list is the United States, with 54% of POS transactions and 21% of online payments, followed by Canada with 54% and 20%.
Apple Pay dominates the US mobile payment market with a 43.9% share.
(Business of Apps)
Knowing that iPhone ranks third in the global smartphone market, it’s no wonder that iOS mobile devices are so popular in the US and that so many Americans choose to pay for goods and services using Apple Pay. Interestingly, Samsung Pay and Google Pay only took third and fourth place in the US.
Apple Pay transactions dominated the US mobile debit wallet market in 2020, accounting for 92% of all payments.
(Pulse Network)
Around two billion debit transactions were completed in 2020 through Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay. Samsung and Google counted for less than 10% of the overall payment volume, with the latter having only a 3% share.
Despite having half a billion users worldwide, Apple Pay is almost non-existent in China.
(Business of Apps)
Apple Pay user statistics reveal that despite the unbeatable popularity of contactless payment methods in China (87.3%), its mobile ecosystem hasn’t been receptive to Apple and other US companies. Even though iPhones are becoming increasingly popular in the country, Apple Pay hasn’t managed to make any significant inroads on the market. The two local mobile payment services, AliPay and WeChat Pay hold a massive duopoly on all eCommerce payments, with 650 million and 550 million registered users, for a total of 96% of the market share. Apple Pay and other big mobile payment names such as Google Pay, PayPal, Paytm, PhonePe, and Samsung Pay haven’t had much success in making a dent in the world’s largest market.
Source:
@BijouMan wrote:
That doesn't tell me anything. These are just statistics gathered by organizations who are only going to survey the countries whose cards are supported and are there to survey usage among their citizens. What I am looking for is to use this thread as a database where U.S. users can submit what countries they have successfully gotten this to work in, especially countries like the ones I listed which are not listed by Apple and therefore will not be surveyed by these organizations.
My links were meant to be helpful in the course of the conversation, not to give you a simple answer. Personally, by the way, I've not used Apple Pay outside of the US.
I'm assuming the Apple list you referenced was this web page?
Market penetration for new technology like Apple Pay doesn't just happen overnight. Even within the US where Apple Pay is widespread, availability can be spotty at the individual merchant level so YMMV as-to the ability to actually use it at a specific location, much less a specific country. So having a report of one merchant accepting it in a certain country doesn't mean it is widely accepted in that country. On the other hand, statistics such as I provided in those links and market trend information about the growing acceptance of Apple Pay show where it is - and is not - commonly accepted and give an idea of potential future growth.
I hope you find some useful specific data points like you were seeking.
@Anonymous wrote:Some of the snippets raise interesting questions!
Knowing that iPhone ranks third in the global smartphone market, it’s no wonder that iOS mobile devices are so popular in the US and that so many Americans choose to pay for goods and services using Apple Pay. Interestingly, Samsung Pay and Google Pay only took third and fourth place in the US.
Apart from the fact that the first bit doesn't make too much logical sense (if it is 3rd globally, why should that imply iOS is so popular in the US?), what is the Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Google Pay comparing? i.e. what is 2nd? If it is something like non-wallet credit card, that would be amazing for Apple Pay!
The second on the list is the United States, with 54% of POS transactions and 21% of online payments, followed by Canada with 54% and 20%.
Again, what is being measured? Are 54% of all US POS done with Apple Pay?
The UK topped Apple Pay transactions in 2021, with 63% of people using it at least once in stores or restaurants.
As of August 2021, the United Kingdom tops a list of seventeen countries worldwide both for online payments and those made through the point of sale (POS) systems. According to Apple Pay statistics for the UK, the country ranked first when it comes to payments in stores, restaurants, and other point-of-sale systems, and its users made over a fifth of all online Apple Pay payments, too.
Is this % of transactions, or actual number? If 54% of US transactions are Apple Pay, given the relative size that should make US #1 I would think! And 63% saying at least once doesn't sound a lot, unless anyone using it once really uses it all the time (which in the UK is easy). And 20% of the total AP online payments is also surprising.
Thanks for the data @Aim_High
You're welcome, @Anonymous, but you're correct that it does raise some questions. I cut-and-pasted those comments from the fortunly.com website that had been assembled from those various sources. The blogger (one Ms Julija Andjelic) is the author and it appears she might have awkwardly worded some of the interpretations of the statistical data. But of course, we know that you can make statistics say whatever you want to say! If you go to the fortunly.com article link above, you are able to contact her about the article.
Looking at the source data and other online resources, I may have some explanations for the questions but these are my best guesses about the intent.
- Being one of the three largest global smartphone platforms is a substantial achievement, so the reference to Apples' popularity in the US was a nod to that place in the world. And with Apple being an original US company, the connection is even more understandable. Incidentally, the "third largest" is somewhat of a misnomer in and of itself. Samsung (South Korea) and Apple have led the global smartphone market for years, but if someone were to misread the results, the "leader" is "OTHER"
since about 1/3 of the market is controlled by a manufacturer other than the big five (Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo - the latter three all being Chinese companies.) Global Smartphone Market - counterpointresearch.com
- The reference to Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay are the place-orders are regarding the popularity of various mobile payment systems within the US. Ironically, what is second within the US (I left off that part in my clip) was ... Starbucks!! (1) Apple (2) Starbucks (3) Google (4) Samsung. (See this link.) By the way, that same webpage shows that China leads the world by-far in mobile payment adoption. It also shows that Apple Pay lags globally behind the two leading mobile payment services from China, Alipay and WeChat Pay, even though neither of those are popular outside of China.
- The "54% of POS and 21% of online payments" was clearly taken out-of-context from the actual survey. Those were percentages of consumers who had EVER used Apple Pay for those purposes, not a percentage of transactions. It was a metric of overall consumer adoption, not sales volume. In 2022, mobile wallet payments accounted for only 12% of Point-of-Sale payments in the US. (Statista.) Likewise, in regards to the UK data, 63% of UK consumers had used Apple Pay at POS at least once. From the original Statista survey page:
Apple Pay use in the United States was bigger than in either France or Canada by late 2022, although not when it came to in-store payments. When comparing two questions from Statista's Global Consumer Survey, six out of 10 respondents from France indicated they had used Apple Pay in a store or restaurant between January 2022 and December 2022 - with an additional two out of 10 saying they used Apple Pay during this same time for online payments. Published by Raynor de Best
@BijouMan wrote:Again, I'm not looking for statistics of usage among citizens of listed countries. Of course it's going to work in those places. I'm looking for reports by citizens of our country tapping their devices in "unsupported" places like the ones I mentioned. For some places it is basically impossible to find this information. I seem to be like the only person who has stated it works in, for example, the Dominican Republic.
Understood, and hope you get some data points for the thread. I found those stats and links, so I thought they might be interesting as a place to start in terms of defining world-wide Apple Pay availability and adoption. Have you tried to contact Apple to see if you can get an answer? I find it odd that they keep a list that apparently is incomplete, which makes it sound like they are behind the infrastucture changes. Or maybe they are waiting to update their country list until a certain penetration threshold is reached, like I was pointing out.