NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – Apple Tuesday disclosed plans to launch its mobile payments service in four more small markets, including three countries in the Nordics, with the tech giant seeing higher usage of Apple Pay outside of the U.S., where NFC-enabled POS terminals are still not widely available.
Apple CFO Luca Maestri mentioned during Apple’s fiscal third quarter earnings call that Apple Pay would launch in Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, as well as the United Arab Emirates, by the end of the year. He did not mention which banks are planning to participate with Apple Pay in these countries.
He also said that Apple Pay is seeing most of its transactions–three out of four–outside of the U.S., where the penetration of contactless POS terminals is generally higher. Globally, including in the U.S., Maestri said Apple Pay accounted for nearly 90% of all NFC mobile payments transactions.