MELBOURNE, SYDNEY, Australia – NFC Times Exclusive: On the face of it, Australia would seem like an ideal market for Apple to expand its Apple Pay service outside of the U.S. After all, iPhone market share here now hovers around 40%, usage rates of contactless payment at retail are the highest in the world and major banks are eager to roll out mobile payment.
Besides Australia, such key target markets for Apple Pay’s next expansion as China, Canada and the UK, have not yet introduced the NFC payments service. While there may well be updates announced about Apple Pay’s expansion, such as a possible launch date in the UK, along with increased functionality for the payments platform, at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference starting Monday, Australia will not be among the new markets launching anytime soon.
There, the reality on the ground is much different than it looks on paper for Apple Pay's prospects for expansion, and Australia could serve as a sort of case study for why nearly eight months after Apple Pay’s launch in the U.S., Apple has so far been unable to expand its payments service to any other country.
