Fans of the Apple Inc. ecosystem have fallen in love with its smooth interoperability, whether it’s sharing YouTube videos on Facebook, taking FaceTime video calls years before Zoom took off, or enjoying all kinds. smartphone experiences delivered on a unified platform.

The Apple Pay digital wallet is another story, albeit a fascinating one.

The new PYMNTS report “Apple Pay @ 7: Winning the Wallet Battle but Losing the In-Store War”, confronts the fact that the use of Apple’s digital wallet has so far not gained ground, as the ‘have done so many of its other connected services. Tracking consumer adoption of Apple Pay since its launch in 2014, PYMNTS researchers surveyed a balanced panel of more than 3,670 US consumers who own a smartphone and made an in-store purchase the day before.

In these data, the general slippage in the use of digital wallets in physical stores stands out, with the report noting that “Apple Pay is doing better than other mobile wallets in the United States, but it still places it in the spotlight. side of the losers of the war for in – store payments. Consumers only use mobile wallets for 4.5% of their in-person purchases in 2021, 26% less often than in 2019, meaning Apple has increased its share of a shrinking market.

More details: Apple Pay to Seven

How does Apple Pay compare

In what could signal more reasons to use Apple Pay in the future, PYMNTS has found that the number of smartphones equipped with Apple Pay (the iPhone 6 and later models) continues to grow from 36% in 2020 to 44% in 2021.

According to the report, this means that “American consumers are on track to spend $ 91.7 billion on Apple-Pay in-store purchases in 2021, up 96% from $ 46.9 billion in 2019. It this is a huge increase, especially given the global transition to the Internet. shopping during the pandemic. This success can be explained by the greater increase in the number of consumers with Apple Pay compatible iPhones and the much wider acceptance of mobile wallet payments at the point of sale.

In addition, the researchers found that “three of Apple’s four main competitors have experienced losses in their share of in-store mobile wallet purchases. We note a particularly sharp drop for Walmart Pay, which saw its market share plummet from 13.8% in 2020 to 4.8% in 2021. Only Samsung Pay has gained a little traction this year, increasing its market share. share from 8.1% to 9.9%, but this comes after a sharp drop in the previous year.

More details: Apple Pay at seven

Acceptance and adoption

What holds back digital wallet adoption isn’t usually fear of technology or lack of the right smartphone – it’s the most common reason people prefer in-store credit and debit cards.

According to the study, “The rise of contactless credit and debit cards provides a solid explanation for the decline in the share of mobile wallets. Respondents who paid in-store using a mobile wallet in the past 24 hours cited convenience (31.2%), ease (23.6%) and speed (17.9% ) as the top three reasons for choosing this payment method. These are also strengths of contactless card payments, which offer a similar contactless payment experience. “

Those carrying the latest generation iPhones will benefit from greater mobile wallet adoption down the line, provided they choose to tap into Apple Pay for more purchases.

“PYMNTS estimates that in 2021, 70% of physical retailers will accept Apple’s mobile wallet, up from 65% last year,” according to Apple Pay at 7.

“This confirms the fact that the main cause of the poor performance of Apple Pay lies in consumers who could use the wallet, but prefer not to. Apple’s wallet saw significant increases in shares of qualifying transactions and overall buyers of qualifying stores using the mobile wallet in 2021 compared to 2020, although both remain low. “

More details: Apple Pay to Seven