Despite getting off with a slow start, Apple Pay has not only flourished over the last two years but has also become the standard of mobile payments, outpacing Paypal, according to new survey data by Boston Retail Partners.
Last October, Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, reported that Apple Pay's transaction volume climbed to 500 percent and even surpassed all of the fiscal year 2015 combined. Furthermore, while many users before find it difficult to transact using Apple Pay, this is apparently no longer the scenario.
In fact, the survey conducted by Boston Retail Partners revealed that percentage of retailers supporting Apple Pay grew to about 36 percent. The figure outpaced percentage of retailers that accept other mobile payment systems such as Android Pay (24%) and even PayPal (34%), this is considering that PayPal had a nearly decade headstart over Apple Pay.
Moreover, by the end of this year, Apple Pay is slated to hit about half of the market penetration of retailers. With such huge coverage, Apple Pay should further boost the high-margin Services revenue Apple highly depends on.
Meanwhile, becoming the standard of mobile payment is not only a good news with Apple Pay itself but also to its retailers. According to Benedict Evans, partner of Andreessen Horowitz, Apple is "much more about driving repeat iPhone purchases" instead of overhauling the payments industry. However, the collateral advantage is to make retail more flexible.
The standard of mobile payment claim sounds presumptuous, given that Apple Pay only accounts 30 percent of the US market share and Google's Android consumes the rest of the market. However, Apple users tend to have more income to dispose and turn to Apple Pay compared with Android consumers using Android Pay.
Such trend makes Apple Pay a more attractive target for retailers and could also pave way for Apple to soon offer Apple Pay to Android users. Apple's future Services are set to have a good future, thanks to retailers embracing the service and increasing percentage of iPhone users.