Citing PayPal figures is pointless without any context. You know why 44% of Americans have a PayPal account? Because for about 18 years you were required to have one to purchase anything on eBay. I suspect you will find the number of people who have used PayPal for anything other eBay purchase would be in the low single digits.
Apple pay is really common in the UK. See loads of people using it. Some places let you pay in full but others limit you to £30 and treat it as what we call a contactless payment which is annoying. Still , in combo with an Apple Watch I use it all the time - I see it as safer than giving anyone your card details.
They should really advertise the security of it a lot more.
I use Apple Pay on my watch to pay for pretty much everything in the UK. I often go out with no cash and no physical cards as Apple Pay on the Watch is just so easy.
Just occasionally the sales assistant will tell me there is a £30 limit but when I try, it usually works. Very few terminals have a £30 limit for Apple Pay in my experience.
I’m delighted with Apple Pay and on the Watch it couldn’t be easier. I can’t think of any shop, restaurant, pub or venue that doesn’t take it.
Even my teenage kids use Apple Pay instead of cash.
I agree about security too. Magnetic stripes were abandoned here long ago as they’re too easy to clone. Most people still use physical cards though with Chip & PIN. I’ve only once used my iPhone X and found it much less convenient.
Part of the problem for the low adoption rate has been the number if NFC-enabled machines available at points of sale worldwide. This is changing dramatically with the arrival of contactless credit cards —for example, in my trip to Europe (I am currently there) I’ve noticed an impressive increase in NFC-enabled devices just compared to the past year. I’ve been using my Watch is at least 75% of the restaurants I’ve been to in Paris, for example.
But the equally major problem has been Apple’s piss-poor marketing/information campaign, which has been close to non-existent. In most of the restaurants and retailers, when I ask them whether I can try out my Watch, they first look at me quizzically, then suggest it would not be possible, and then are gobsmacked when it goes through. I’ve heard at least a dozen times that I am the first person they’ve seen using a Watch to pay.
Not a huge user of ApplePay but I would have thought 9% adoption wasn't bad...
According to pundits, only Apple must have at least 50% to be a marginal success. Anything less is doom for Apple.
These endless “poor, beleaguered Apple” cries in response to every story — from the same predictable group of people — are getting to be a tad tiring.
There are many things that Apple does fabulously, and there are many things that Apple can do better. To not see that in an indiscriminate fashion is doing neither he Apple community or the company itself (in terms of the feedback it receives from its customers) any good.
Just want to back up that last comment. Here in the UK it's literally everywhere. Supermarkets, cinemas, petrol stations… hell, my small corner shop has had it for ages. For such a forward-looking country, the US sure can be slow to move with the times – which is especially odd given that there are nearly 190 million iPhones in use there!
I’ve been using it since the get-go. But i rarely could find a place where it was accepted, so I often didn’t ask. It’s much better now, and i use it much more than a physical card these days.
I wish there was a better system of identifying terminals. I don’t mind asking if a store has it, but my wife will not touch Apple Pay until acceptance is ubiquitous because asking would be very annoying to her.
This is problem of USA adoption. In other marjets there is newer HW that works with Apple Pay and others out of the box so you do not need to solve whether it will be accepted.
Second, here are not too spread any type of cards like Starbacks or their are more like loyalty cards so do not interfere with payment. Only in case they would block it.
There is little incentive for consumers to ditch credit cards, the top form of payment in America, for a mobile payment alternative, du Toit notes. In some cases, swiping or inserting a credit card into a point of sale terminal is easier than pulling out an iPhone, unlocking it and tapping it on an NFC reader.
Integration is another issue. Credit cards are accepted by nearly all U.S. merchants and cash is, obviously, ubiquitous. Brick-and-mortar stores are beginning to adopt touchless solutions like Apple Pay, but the process often requires the purchase and installation of new hardware, as well as acceptance of an operator's terms.
What a smoking pile of rubbish that report is.
ad 1) In no imaginable scenario whatsoever is fishing out my wallet, taking out the credit card and inserting it into a point of sale, putting it back to my wallet and putting the wallet back in my pocket faster, than paying with my iPhone, let alone paying with my Apple Watch, that is already on my wrist and I just double tap the button and put it to the terminal! That is sheer nonsense.
ad b) Here in Europe, contactless payment is everywhere, and in over a year of using Apple pay, I have yet to encounter a brick & mortar store, that wouldn't accept Apple Pay. My experience covers multiple countries in Western, Central/Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.
And there is no Apple Pay vs. credit card dichotomy. One still uses their credit/debit card while using Apple Pay.
The amount of nonsense in that report is just staggering. The author clearly hadn't used Apple Pay once.
Apple Watch plus Apple Pay is killer — nothing to pull out of a wallet, faster than a chip reader, and no need to sign. Once you use it, it’s all you want to use.
Can’t wait to upgrade from my Series 2 to a Series 5 in the fall. Double tapping the side button to bring up Apple Pay is dreadfully slow sometimes. If I’m at a place I know accepts it I’ll bring it up ahead of time while they’re ringing up my items. But if it’s a place where I’m unsure and I don’t know until I ask or I see that little contactless logo appear on the screen it can sometimes take 10 seconds or more for it it come up. With just one card in there it’s a little quicker but when I’ve got my 7 credit cards plus my wife’s 3 credit cards, plus loyalty cards for different stores, it is painful. The Series 5 should be much quicker.
You might have a problem with that watch. Apple Pay comes up on my Series 1 virtually immediately. There no lag whatsoever. None. Actually, one of its attractions to me is that it is so fast -- not just to load the ApplePay app but to complete the transaction -- about 1/4 the time my chip card takes.
But I get your desire for a Series 5. I have the same. But this damned Series 1 won't stop running and running well -- so I just can't get myself to scrap it for new & improved.
Citing PayPal figures is pointless without any context. You know why 44% of Americans have a PayPal account? Because for about 18 years you were required to have one to purchase anything on eBay. I suspect you will find the number of people who have used PayPal for anything other eBay purchase would be in the low single digits.
I find that many, maybe most, online vendors take PayPal -- which I always use in order to shield my credit card from a vender who either I don't know or who may choose to store my card information on their site -- which leaves it open to hackers.
There is little incentive for consumers to ditch credit cards, the top form of payment in America, for a mobile payment alternative, du Toit notes. In some cases, swiping or inserting a credit card into a point of sale terminal is easier than pulling out an iPhone, unlocking it and tapping it on an NFC reader.
Integration is another issue. Credit cards are accepted by nearly all U.S. merchants and cash is, obviously, ubiquitous. Brick-and-mortar stores are beginning to adopt touchless solutions like Apple Pay, but the process often requires the purchase and installation of new hardware, as well as acceptance of an operator's terms.
What a smoking pile of rubbish that report is.
ad 1) In no imaginable scenario whatsoever is fishing out my wallet, taking out the credit card and inserting it into a point of sale, putting it back to my wallet and putting the wallet back in my pocket faster, than paying with my iPhone, let alone paying with my Apple Watch, that is already on my wrist and I just double tap the button and put it to the terminal! That is sheer nonsense.
ad b) Here in Europe, contactless payment is everywhere, and in over a year of using Apple pay, I have yet to encounter a brick & mortar store, that wouldn't accept Apple Pay. My experience covers multiple countries in Western, Central/Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.
And there is no Apple Pay vs. credit card dichotomy. One still uses their credit/debit card while using Apple Pay.
The amount of nonsense in that report is just staggering. The author clearly hadn't used Apple Pay once.
For myself, I have to get my wallet out anyway in order to store the receipt (which I later enter Quicken) -- so getting the chip card out is actually easier than getting the phone out. But the transaction goes so much quicker with the phone that it kind of balances out.
But, in reality, I don't either: I use my AppleWatch -- which is super quick and super easy, then tuck the receipt into my wallet.
"There is little incentive for consumers to ditch credit cards, the
top form of payment in America, for a mobile payment alternative, du
Toit notes. In some cases, swiping or inserting a credit card into a
point of sale terminal is easier than pulling out an iPhone, unlocking
it and tapping it on an NFC reader."
WTF, does this guy have any clue on how Apple Pay works? Apple pay is linked to a credit card. You are not ditching anything. Pulling a wallet then the card out of your pocket then sliding it into the reader is not easier than pulling out a phone and tapping it on the reader. That's another joke. And you don't have to unlock the phone, just double tap on a button.
So after reading that, why should I believe any of the stats that his company Bain offered up? Does not even pass the sniff test. Apple Pay has been out several years and it being accepted in more and more places. Only 9%. Who gave them those figures? Why does Bain allow people like du Toit make ridiculous public statements like this in their name?
You may have taken him too literally. There are many people who choose to use a card instead of ApplePay and never even load their cards into ApplePay. For some, they don't understand what ApplePay is or what it does. For others, they think it is not secure to put their credit card on the iPhone. Others simply find it simpler to just do it the old way. Essentially, they can't be bothered to move on and move up to Apple Pay when the old way works just fine for them.
So, while technically ApplePay uses the person's credit card, to the person, it is "either use a card or use Apple Pay".
While you can debate his logic, he is clearly correct because the vast majority of people in the U.S. continue to pull out their credit cards instead of their phones. You can call them stupid, uneducated, old fashioned or whatever -- but that doesn't change the fact that the vast majority continue to use their card directly.
I expect there will always be some reluctance by the big chains like Walmart, Home Depot and until recently CVS and Target.
One of the biggest problems is the US restaurant industry's Stone Age mentality (not talking about fast food).
In quaint little Austria, when it's time to pay at a decent restaurant, the server pulls out handheld wireless POS terminal that has NFC contactless payment capabilities and a built-in printer from their belt holster. They process the transaction tableside, takes about 30 seconds hands you the receipt.
Here in the big badass Mr. Macho "We Rule" USA, the server takes your credit card and walks away with it to a POS terminal to process the transaction. Takes about 5 minutes on average. Sooo back asswards.
By far the best payment system on the planet is Japan's, particularly places that take IC cards like Suica. Bain's focus on China is relevant because it's one of the world's largest economies and the fact that adoption rates are improving quickly while in an modern, open economy like the USA, adoption rates are nearly stagnant.
US is shooting itself in a foot by not having a universal contactless payment system. Lock in to "Walmart pay" or other single-vendor stuff is ridiculous.
Here in Finland you can use either Apple Pay or contactless physical cards literally everywhere! Cannot say about MobilePay and other Apple Pay rivals, but should be the same story.
I guess we’re lucky up here in Canada. Almost everyone accepts tap & pay (which means they accept Apple Pay by default). Two big holdouts are Home Depot and Walmart, which is why I refuse to shop there.
Yes, very lucky. In Canada all transactions go through Interac, so since they were onboard with Apple Pay from the start, by default mostly all stores that accept tap accept Apple Pay. I just wish they're up the default limit beyond the 100$. In Australia I was using Apple Pay for upwards of 500$. (My understanding is that Australia is like Canada in that there are only a handful of transaction providers.)
Home Depot's POS don't accept tap in general, not necessarily excluding Apple Pay. However, I noticed that in their renovated stores with the new check-outs, their POS now accepts tap — and Apple Pay.
Apple Watch plus Apple Pay is killer — nothing to pull out of a wallet, faster than a chip reader, and no need to sign. Once you use it, it’s all you want to use.
Can’t wait to upgrade from my Series 2 to a Series 5 in the fall. Double tapping the side button to bring up Apple Pay is dreadfully slow sometimes. If I’m at a place I know accepts it I’ll bring it up ahead of time while they’re ringing up my items. But if it’s a place where I’m unsure and I don’t know until I ask or I see that little contactless logo appear on the screen it can sometimes take 10 seconds or more for it it come up. With just one card in there it’s a little quicker but when I’ve got my 7 credit cards plus my wife’s 3 credit cards, plus loyalty cards for different stores, it is painful. The Series 5 should be much quicker.
I have a Series 4 and it's instantaneous. Truly a killer feature for the watch, and a great example of how Apple's integration of hardware, software, and services can sometimes seem "magical."
The US… a country that still doesn't use metric in everyday life… what did they expect?
The common people (were talking non-tech types) in this country are VERY slow to adopt / understand technology. Hell, there are a lot of people still walking around with flip phones. Or, people who have brand new cars that don't know (or don't read their owner's manual) to hook up to bluetooth. They still drive around holding their phones to their face.
So, considering the above, 9% isn't bad for the US.
I can't speak for the US, because I live in Canada. But to be honest I haven't started using AP for a couple of reasons.
First I've changed CCs twice and still don't have one that works with AP. My Credit Union has flat out said they have no plans to adopt AP, so my debit card will never work with it. The banks up here and the people up here like their chip cards. Yes a number of the bigger banks have said they support it, but they are the exception.
The second reason is like the well known meme.
I haven't had a chance to try AP so I honestly have no idea how it works, and by now I'm afraid to ask.
I don't want to be the doddering old guy holding up the line trying to figure out how to pay with my phone. I KNOW I can pull out my card, tap it, and go. AP is more secure, but it sure as heck isn't going to be any faster.
So someday I may start using AP, but that day is looking more distant and hazy.
Apple Watch plus Apple Pay is killer — nothing to pull out of a wallet, faster than a chip reader, and no need to sign. Once you use it, it’s all you want to use.
Took the words out of my mouth, The Wallet app with Apple Pay and Passes, where I store other reward cards, is absolutely a joy to use. With the addition of the Apple Credit card, the Wallet app is the most convenient, payment, card management app that is integrated with the Apple ecosystem.
But, in reality, I don't either: I use my AppleWatch -- which is super quick and super easy, then tuck the receipt into my wallet.
That's kind of my point. I can't even recall when did I last pay with a credit card. I use the Apple Watch all the time and you'd be hard pressed to invent anything more convenient.
Comments
Some places let you pay in full but others limit you to £30 and treat it as what we call a contactless payment which is annoying.
Still , in combo with an Apple Watch I use it all the time - I see it as safer than giving anyone your card details.
They should really advertise the security of it a lot more.
Just occasionally the sales assistant will tell me there is a £30 limit but when I try, it usually works. Very few terminals have a £30 limit for Apple Pay in my experience.
I’m delighted with Apple Pay and on the Watch it couldn’t be easier. I can’t think of any shop, restaurant, pub or venue that doesn’t take it.
Even my teenage kids use Apple Pay instead of cash.
I agree about security too. Magnetic stripes were abandoned here long ago as they’re too easy to clone. Most people still use physical cards though with Chip & PIN. I’ve only once used my iPhone X and found it much less convenient.
But the equally major problem has been Apple’s piss-poor marketing/information campaign, which has been close to non-existent. In most of the restaurants and retailers, when I ask them whether I can try out my Watch, they first look at me quizzically, then suggest it would not be possible, and then are gobsmacked when it goes through. I’ve heard at least a dozen times that I am the first person they’ve seen using a Watch to pay.
There are many things that Apple does fabulously, and there are many things that Apple can do better. To not see that in an indiscriminate fashion is doing neither he Apple community or the company itself (in terms of the feedback it receives from its customers) any good.
ad 1) In no imaginable scenario whatsoever is fishing out my wallet, taking out the credit card and inserting it into a point of sale, putting it back to my wallet and putting the wallet back in my pocket faster, than paying with my iPhone, let alone paying with my Apple Watch, that is already on my wrist and I just double tap the button and put it to the terminal! That is sheer nonsense.
ad b) Here in Europe, contactless payment is everywhere, and in over a year of using Apple pay, I have yet to encounter a brick & mortar store, that wouldn't accept Apple Pay. My experience covers multiple countries in Western, Central/Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.
And there is no Apple Pay vs. credit card dichotomy. One still uses their credit/debit card while using Apple Pay.
The amount of nonsense in that report is just staggering. The author clearly hadn't used Apple Pay once.
But I get your desire for a Series 5. I have the same. But this damned Series 1 won't stop running and running well -- so I just can't get myself to scrap it for new & improved.
But, in reality, I don't either: I use my AppleWatch -- which is super quick and super easy, then tuck the receipt into my wallet.
So, while technically ApplePay uses the person's credit card, to the person, it is "either use a card or use Apple Pay".
While you can debate his logic, he is clearly correct because the vast majority of people in the U.S. continue to pull out their credit cards instead of their phones. You can call them stupid, uneducated, old fashioned or whatever -- but that doesn't change the fact that the vast majority continue to use their card directly.
One of the biggest problems is the US restaurant industry's Stone Age mentality (not talking about fast food).
In quaint little Austria, when it's time to pay at a decent restaurant, the server pulls out handheld wireless POS terminal that has NFC contactless payment capabilities and a built-in printer from their belt holster. They process the transaction tableside, takes about 30 seconds hands you the receipt.
Here in the big badass Mr. Macho "We Rule" USA, the server takes your credit card and walks away with it to a POS terminal to process the transaction. Takes about 5 minutes on average. Sooo back asswards.
By far the best payment system on the planet is Japan's, particularly places that take IC cards like Suica. Bain's focus on China is relevant because it's one of the world's largest economies and the fact that adoption rates are improving quickly while in an modern, open economy like the USA, adoption rates are nearly stagnant.
Home Depot's POS don't accept tap in general, not necessarily excluding Apple Pay. However, I noticed that in their renovated stores with the new check-outs, their POS now accepts tap — and Apple Pay.
First I've changed CCs twice and still don't have one that works with AP. My Credit Union has flat out said they have no plans to adopt AP, so my debit card will never work with it. The banks up here and the people up here like their chip cards. Yes a number of the bigger banks have said they support it, but they are the exception.
The second reason is like the well known meme.
I haven't had a chance to try AP so I honestly have no idea how it works, and by now I'm afraid to ask.
I don't want to be the doddering old guy holding up the line trying to figure out how to pay with my phone. I KNOW I can pull out my card, tap it, and go. AP is more secure, but it sure as heck isn't going to be any faster.
So someday I may start using AP, but that day is looking more distant and hazy.