NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – As Apple Pay approaches the fifth anniversary of its launch in the U.S., there is more research showing that most American consumers simply don’t see the value of tapping to pay with NFC-based payments services.
According to U.S.-based 451 Research, transactions from such mobile payments services as Apple Pay and Google Pay will only account for a combined 1.6% of sales from physical merchants in the U.S. this year, amounting to around $78 billion, said published reports. That percentage is up from the past couple of years, but it shows that Apple Pay, which accounts for the vast majority of contactless-mobile and wearables transactions in the U.S., has a long way to go before American consumers are routinely tapping their iPhones and Apple Watches to pay.
The projection is despite ample awareness of Apple Pay–which launched in the U.S. in October 2014–among American consumers and growing acceptance of contactless payments by merchants. Such backers of the technology as Visa note that 75% to 80% of the top 100 merchants in the U.S., in terms of numbers of transactions, now have active contactless POS terminals.
