“Americans who travel to China will find one thing somewhat unusual: In restaurants, stores and markets, people will take out their phones instead of credit cards when they’re ready to pay,” Krystal Hu reports for Yahoo Finance. “Despite all the buzz and excitement, mobile payment in stores still hasn’t gained much steam in the U.S. Mobile transactions barely accounted for $1 out of every $100 spent in-stores last year, according to a new report by 451 Research, a New York-based advisory company.”
“And analysts don’t expect mobile payment usage to rise anytime soon — the percentage is expected to reach just 3.4% by 2022,” Hu reports. “An eMarketer report highlights the gap between the U.S. and China: This year, 25.3% of smartphone users in the U.S. are expected to pay for physical purchases by phone, compared with an estimated 77.5% in China.”
“According to Gallup, a consumer in the U.S. has an average of 3.4 credit cards. Longtime credit card users don’t necessarily see the benefits of switching to mobile,” Hu reports. “According to eMarketer, the U.S. has about one-tenth of the mobile payment users in China, where major mobile payment providers offer benefits to encourage consumers who pay by phone. Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s affiliate Alipay, for example, offers 10% off for Chinese tourists when they shop and use the app in Coach stores in New York City.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Gee, ya don’t say? Incentivizing use is the key? Who’da thunk it?
Apple, give us a reason to use Apple Pay beyond looking like tech dorks in front of the line at the register. What’s the incentive to use Apple Pay? There is none besides looking like a flaming nerd. As if Apple doesn’t have any money. That, inexplicably, is how they approach Apple Pay. Hello, Tim? Eddy? Talk to some people who actually go to stores and shop for things, please.
Incentivize its use! Give Apple Pay users a percentage of every dollar spent via Apple Pay to spend at Apple Stores. Something. Anything! Get people used to using it first. Sheesh. It’s really not that difficult. It really isn’t. — MacDailyNews, August 8, 2015
