Smartphone payment services have 80% adoption rates in China but only 10% in the US

"According to new statistics from management consultancy Bain, some 80% of Chinese consumers used some form of smartphone payments service last year, far higher than a U.S. adoption rate of 10%, reports CNBC.
Broken down by service, the Chinese market is dominated by local systems like WeChat Pay and AliPay, both of which enjoyed over 80% adoption rates in 2018. Cash, bank cards, credit cards and bank apps follow, with Apple Pay listed as the most-used foreign service with 17% adoption.
Gerard du Toit, partner and head of Bain's banking and payments sector, notes countries like China and India are ripe for penetration due to their reliance on cash.
"China and India have been very cash-based economies — that has a pretty high hassle and friction factor," du Toit said. "Mobile payment is a dramatic improvement versus having to manage a whole bunch of cash."
Whereas Alibaba and Tencent offered attractive alternatives to traditional payments in a bid for Chinese consumer favor, India pushed the use of mobile payments to dissuade unrecorded cash transactions and thus reap consumption taxes.
The story is different in the U.S., where Apple Pay has a 9% adoption rate. By comparison, PayPal is used by 44% of American consumers, while credit card and cash boast respective adoption rates of 80% and 79%.
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."

Source:  Apple Insider, 29th August 2019

450m people played a CNY game on Alipay in February 2019

"Chinese tech giants reported more user participation in the digital "red envelopes" during the Spring Festival holiday as Chinese zealously snatched lucky money for good fortune.
Some 450 million people participated in the game of collecting "five blessings" on payment platform Alipay to receive lucky money offered by Internet giant Alibaba, up 40 percent year on year, according to Ant Financial, Alibaba's finance arm.
WeChat, a popular instant messaging app by Tencent, another prominent player in the mobile payment realm, saw the number of red envelopes sent or received increase by 7.12 percent year on year to 823 million from Feb. 4 to Feb. 9, a report carried by the Economic Information Daily.
Giving cash in red envelopes (hongbao) is a traditional practice during the Spring Festival, which has been shifting online thanks to the increasing popularity of mobile payments in which people use apps to send, collect and draw virtual hongbaos on their smartphones."

Source:  China Daily, 11th February 2019

PayPal has over 250m active accounts

"We want to be a company that shows up and fights every day for our customers; that is never afraid to have the tough conversations or challenge conventional wisdom or legacy processes if we think we’ve found a way to better serve our customers. That’s our responsibility every day. And it’s also our privilege.
PayPal is certainly not the first company to strive to be customer-centric, nor will we be the last. But there’s a critical difference: our impact and success as a business is directly proportionate to the engagement and success of our customers. If our customers do well, we do well. If they grow, we grow. We need to always stay relentlessly focused on serving our customers, and if we do so, we can create magic for everyone.
Well, magic just happened. The total number of active accounts on our platform recently surpassed 250 million. This is an important milestone for our company, and a key marker on our journey to fulfill PayPal’s potential. On February 27, 2017, we announced that we had surpassed 200 million active accounts. The fact that we’ve added an additional 50 million accounts in a little more than 18 months – nearly 3 million accounts per month – is a testament to the tireless work you’ve done on behalf of our customers to add more and more value to our platform."

Source:  Blog post from PayPal, 5th September 2018

300 ATMs are closing in the UK each month

"Doubt has been cast over the future of cashpoints in the UK as it was revealed that 300 ATMs are closing every month.
Consumer champion Which? analysed data from ATM network manager Link to find that 1,500 ATMs had closed between November 2017 and April 2018 - which represents a six fold increase from 2015.
The closures also ramped up after Link announced changes to fees that ATM operators can charge banks to use cash machines.
Link is introducing a phased 20 per cent reduction over four years to the so-called interchange charge, with the first 1p cut down to 24p per withdrawal set to come in on Sunday. Though this seems like a small amount, operators claim the rise will lead to some machines being financially unviable to run.
The firm which oversees cash machines argues the changes will provide an incentive for operators to put more machines in rural and less affluent area to keep the network sustainable.
But the ATM Industry Association told Which? the move had triggered the network on a "path to disaster" and had simply led to the number of cash machines decreasing."

Source:  CityAM, 29th June 2018

Mobile payments are approaching a tipping point in the UK

"Mobile payments are fast approaching a tipping point, with spending via smartphones accelerating according to the latest consumer spending data from Worldpay.
The number of in-store contactless transactions made via a mobile device totalled 126 million last year, with the amount spent topping £975 million. This marks a 328% year-on-year rise in in-store mobile spending; and with almost a third  of consumers now taking advantage of their phone’s payment capabilities, these numbers are set for exponential growth over the next 12 months.
Accounting for 59% of all in-store mobile transactions, the supermarket sector has been an important driver in the uptake of digital wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay, as time-poor shoppers grab groceries on the go. Pubs, bars and restaurants make up a further 12.5% of the total spend.
But according to Worldpay’s analysis, shoppers are now starting to purchase higher value items via their smartphones. In the second half of 2017, the average spend per transaction increased by 11%*, with a notable lift-off following the increase in retailers accepting ‘limitless’ Apple Pay transactions in May. Consequently, luxury department stores and high end boutiques are now one of the fastest growing sectors for mobile payments; although the volume of mobile transactions in this category still remains a small fraction of the total (2.9%), its share of the market has more than doubled since last year."

Source:  WorldPay, 1st March 2018

Mobile payments account for 11% of Starbucks' US sales

"Starbucks, the coffee chain with more than 28,000 locations worldwide, said its mobile order and pay service grew to 11% of transactions in U.S. company-operated stores in Q1 2018 from 10% in the prior quarter. The Starbucks Rewards loyalty program helped to drive mobile growth with an 11% membership gain to 14.2 million from the prior year. Member spending made up 37% of U.S. sales.
The company, which now has the ability to offer mobile order and pay to customers who don’t belong to its loyalty program, plans to ramp up the service to all customers in March, company president and CEO Kevin Johnson said in a conference call with investors. The growing popularity of mobile payment is leading the company to test cashless stores in the U.S."

Source:  Mobile Marketer, 29th Jan 2018

Starbucks' loyaltry programme has 13.2m members in the US

"Mobile payments accounted for 30 percent of transactions in U.S. stores during the company’s third quarter, which was up from 29 percent in the previous quarter and 27 percent in Q1.
Starbucks’ Rewards program grew by 11 percent from last year; there are now 13.3 million active members in the U.S. that account for 36 percent of U.S. company-operated store sales. However, membership has remained stagnant at 13.3 million since April, when Starbucks reported its Q2 earnings. That’s also when Starbucks tweaked the program to reward customers based on money they spend rather than how often they visit."

Source:  GeekWire, 2nd November 2017

Contactless payments account for 45% of Visa's transactions in the UK

Fun fact from Visa’s Oliver Jenkyn: Contactless payments = 91% transactions 🇦🇺, 45% 🇬🇧, 5% 🇺🇸 #money2020

— Chloe Cornish (@ChloeNCornish) October 23, 2017

More than 80% of store transactions in Sweden are cashless

"For a minimalist society like Sweden, cash has long been an unwanted appendage.
“We haven’t accepted cash for maybe a year and a half,” says Märta Skilimark, manager at Swedish coffee and tea store Johan & Nyström. “Our Swedish customers are very used to it. It’s basically tourists who are surprised we don’t take cash.”
According to the Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank, more than 80 per cent of store transactions are cashless. Similarly, from 2013 to 2014, Sweden’s cash-to-GDP ratio shrank 5.8 per cent as increasing quantities of physical money fell out of circulation. With digital payment systems such as Swish and iZettle having taken the country by storm, cash is falling by the wayside."

Source:  Raconteur, 27th Sept 2017

In-App ordering accounts of 9% of Starbucks transactions

"Starbucks, the coffee chain with 27,000 stores in 75 countries, continues to ramp up mobile technology as a key part of its strategy to handle customer orders, payments and loyalty programs. The company plans to test a guest checkout feature for first-time users of its mobile application early in 2018, Matt Ryan, global chief strategy officer, said last week in a call with investors.
Payments made with a mobile device increased to 30% of transactions in the U.S. stores in fiscal Q3 2017, compared with 29% in the previous three-month period. The chain’s mobile order and pay feature that lets customers order with the Starbucks app and skip the line generated 9% of transactions. That’s nearly double the 5% from a year earlier.
While Starbucks’ mobile app has led to overwhelming foot traffic at some cafes, the company has added digital order managers to 1,000 stores to improve the ability to serve customers who order and pay through their phones."
Source:  Mobile Marketer, 31st July 2017

38 million credit cards were linked to Apple Pay in China on the first day

"According to local reports, by 5 p.m., 38 million bank cards had been linked to Apple Pay. The Beijing Morning News said on its Weibo account that within an hour of the service going live at 5 a.m., 10 million people had already linked their bank cards to their accounts."

Source:  Mashable, 19th February 2016

Over $1bn of payments were made on Venmo in January 2016

"For the first time in our history, in the month of January, over $1 billion in payments were made on Venmo. That is over two-and-half times what we saw in January 2015, and more than 10x our volume in January 2014. We thought this was a pretty big milestone, so we wanted to share it with you."
~Source:  Venmo blog, 16th February 2016

Apple Pay drives better performance in commerce apps

"That mobile apps are adopting the service at a fast rate makes sense: Getting Apple Pay into a store requires pricey new terminals, but app developers only need to insert some code.
The ease of use in an app—consumers only have to scan their fingerprint into their phone—could spur more frequent buying and larger purchases, says Ben Bajarin of Creative Strategies, a technology research firm.
For example, Domino Go, an interior design app, is running exclusive deals for purchases made with Apple Pay, and says it’s seen a 436% boost in average daily revenue after adding the option.
Staples told Quartz that checkout times are 35 seconds less than traditional methods like credit and debit cards, and Instacart, an on-demand grocery app, said customers checkout 58% faster with Apple Pay than other payment methods, saving them about a minute on average.
Apple Pay is also helping with cart abandonment—when consumers get frustrated plugging in their payment and shipping information, and just give up. JackThreads, a popular men’s fashion site, says customers who use Apple Pay are 92% more likely to finish a transaction than those who don’t."

Source:  Quartz, 9th February 2016

420m WeChat users sent over 8 billion 'Red Envelopes' at Chinese New Year 2016

"The scale of social and messaging platforms in China is at its peak on Chinese New Year, as statistics on usage of platforms such as WeChat and Weibo reveal.
According to WeChat, owned by digital media business Tencent, 420 million people sent each other lucky money via the app’s payment service on the eve of Chinese New Year. According to WeChat, it has seen a total of 8.08 billion red envelopes sent so far for Chinese New Year, eight times more than last year.
To put this into context, according to PayPal it made 4.9 billion transactions in 2015 (half of the number of transactions made on WeChat just for Chinese New Year) and only 28 per cent were made on a mobile device."
Source:  The Drum, 9th February 2016
Also
Stats on Weibo usage

Apple's app store generated revenues of $1.1bn over Christmas 2015

"Apple today announced that customers around the world made this holiday season the biggest ever for the App Store, setting new records during the weeks of Christmas and New Year’s.
In the two weeks ending January 3, customers spent over $1.1 billion on apps and in-app purchases, setting back-to-back weekly records for traffic and purchases. January 1, 2016 marked the biggest day in App Store history with customers spending over $144 million. It broke the previous single-day record set just a week earlier on Christmas Day.
“The App Store had a holiday season for the record books. We are excited that our customers downloaded and enjoyed so many incredible apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV, spending over $20 billion on the App Store last year alone,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “We're grateful to all the developers who have created the most innovative and exciting apps in the world for our customers. We can't wait for what's to come in 2016.”
Worldwide, the App Store has brought in nearly $40 billion for developers since 2008, with over one-third generated in the last year alone.
Largely as a result of the App Store’s success, Apple is now responsible for creating and supporting 1.9 million jobs in the U.S. alone. Nearly three-quarters of those jobs — over 1.4 million — are attributable to the community of app creators, software engineers and entrepreneurs building apps for iOS, as well as non-IT jobs supported directly and indirectly through the app economy.*
Apple has previously reported that the iOS app economy has created 1.2 million jobs in Europe and 1.4 million jobs in China."

Source:  Press release from Apple, 6th January 2016

iPhones in use in the US by model number

Source:  Apple Insider, 19th November 2015
Note - This means that there are over 60m iPhone 6 or above, that could use Apple Pay

Paypal's Venmo app processed $2.1bn in payments in Q3 2015

"PayPal’s aim is not only to grow its customer base, but to create deeper, more relevant relationships with each of its customers. In the third quarter, the company processed 1.22 billion payment transactions, which translates to 27 payment transactions per active customer account. This is an increase from 24 payment transactions per active customer account in the same period last year. $2.1 billion of volume was processed through the Venmo product, growing over 200%, making it one of the fastest growing apps in the world by dollar volume."

Source:  BusinessWire, 28th October 2015

Note - Venmo is currently only available to US residents

20% of sales on Red Dress Boutique are processed by Amazon

"Amazon, which is usually opaque on numbers, did not disclose how many merchants actually use the service in some form, although the four-year-old online clothing site Red Dress Boutique, for example, reports that 20% of all sales — at least $2.8 million based on back-of-the-envelope math — are now processed via Amazon."

Source: Mashable, 16th May 2015

Only 6% of iPhone 6 users have used Apple Pay

"Six months since the launch of Apple Pay, only 6 percent of iPhone 6 owners have used Apple Pay and 85 percent of people with access to Apple Pay have never used it, according to a report by InfoScout and PYMNTS.
The new stats were revealed at PYMNTS.com Innovation Project 2015 mobile payments conference. The survey drew on 1,188 participants over a three-day period last week.
Consumers who don’t use Apple Pay reported that they were happy with their current payment method and/or didn’t understand how Apple Pay worked. About 9 percent of iPhone 6 owners have played around with Apple Pay, but haven’t actually used it. They say they either forget to use it in stores or were unsure about where it was accepted."

Source:  Venture Beat, 18th March 2015

Note - I'm assuming this research is US only - as Apple Pay is only available in the US it would be a completely different story if only 6% of global users had ever used it

Apple Pay is accepted at 700,000 US locations, inc 50,000 Coca Cola vending machines

"Apple’s mobile payment system Apple Pay is now accepted in 700,000 U.S. locations, including 50,000 Coke vending machines, CEO Tim Cook announced at the company’s product event today in San Francisco. The system allows users to tap their iPhone or Apple Watch against the permanent terminal at select stores to pay without the need to use a credit or debit card or cash.
While the number Cook cited today is impressive, it really is just a reminder of how good Apple’s timing was in launching this system. You see, in order for a store to accept Apple Pay, its payment terminal has to include a technology called near field communication, or NFC. A bunch of retail chains already had the technology, allowing Apple to easily launch with hundreds of thousands of partners."

Source:  ReCode, 9th March 2015