Apple said during recent earnings calls that the number of active Apple Pay users had doubled year-on-year, with transactions more than tripling – but didn’t reveal any numbers.
Loup Ventures has today published new estimates, suggesting that there are now 127M active Apple Pay users globally, up from 62M a year ago. However, says the firm, that still represents a relatively small percentage of active iPhones …
The firm estimates that only 5% of US iPhones have Apple Pay activated, contrasting with 11% of international iPhones. This is likely explained by contactless and mobile payment being far more widely supported in Europe and Nordic countries. It’s also worth noting that the base here is all active iPhones, which includes older models that don’t support Apple Pay.
Checking availability for the top 100 US retailers, Loup found that adoption of Apple Pay for online and app purchases was also low. It found that only 14 stores accepted Apple Pay on desktop, 24 on mobile and 24 in their apps. It did, though, note that this represented strong growth on the previous year’s numbers.
The news was better where banks were concerned, with 2707 banks now supporting Apple Pay. This was up 41% year-on-year.
Apple also has a clear lead on other NFC-based mobile wallets, Apple stating last year that Apple Pay accounts for almost 90% of NFC payments globally.
Loup Ventures earlier estimated that 3% of US smart speaker buyers now own a HomePod, though its data there was based on a survey of just 520 consumers.
