Apple Pay generated considerable attention immediately after its launch, with early transaction data suggesting consumers were quickly embracing the new mobile payment option. Estimates indicated that Apple Pay adoption at Whole Foods was particularly strong, with the service potentially accounting for nearly 1% of the retailer’s transactions within just 17 days. For a newly introduced payment method requiring compatible devices and merchant acceptance, that represented a notable early milestone.
Walgreens also reported encouraging results following its Apple Pay integration, including increased in-store activity and significant mobile engagement. The retailer’s integration of its loyalty program with Passbook further demonstrated the potential benefits of combining mobile payments with rewards and other digital wallet functionality. These early examples suggested that Apple’s emphasis on a simple, integrated payment experience could help overcome some of the adoption challenges that had constrained earlier mobile payment solutions.
This article in Let’s Talk Payments presents analysis compiled from multiple sources andsuggests the Apple Pay adoption and use trajectory is unparalleled.
“Asper estimates by Mike Dudas, co-founder and CRO of Button, Apple Pay may haverepresented around 1% of all Whole Foods transactions in the past 17 days sinceApple Pay’s launch on October 20th. As per the new estimates, the 150,000transactions made via Apple pay would eventually account for 0.91% of alltransactions at their stores in the 17 day period.”
The article also offers Apple Pay adoption stats atWalgreens:
“Recently,at the Mobile Women to Watch 2015 Summit, a Walgreens executive mentioned thatin-store traffic at the chain has doubled since their integration with ApplePay. Walgreens witnesses 55% of its traffic coming from mobile. Walgreens hasalso integrated its loyalty program with Passbook and has seen its positionjump from 66 to 8 in the app store rankings. Walgreens is benefiting from ApplePay acting as a user friendly mobile application simplifying the user paymentexperience at Walgreens’ point-of-sale systems.”
Apple Pay appears to be off to a fantastic start.
Early Apple Pay adoption figures at major retailers such as Whole Foods and Walgreens provided promising evidence that consumers were willing to change how they paid when presented with a convenient mobile experience. Apple’s ability to combine payments with existing devices, applications, and loyalty programs also gave the platform an important advantage in encouraging repeat usage.
Whether those early results would translate into sustained mainstream adoption remained to be seen. However, the initial transaction volumes demonstrated the potential for Apple Pay to accelerate consumer acceptance of mobile payments and encourage more merchants to invest in contactless payment capabilities.
Overview by Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation for Mercator Advisory Group
Read full story at Let’s Talk Payments
