After nearly a decade of effort, Apple Pay finally plans to enter India’s digital payments market by the end of the year—one of the few major developed markets it has yet to penetrate. But the company faces an uphill battle, as its service will initially not connect with India’s massively popular UPI payments interface.
The launch will focus on card-based contactless payments, allowing iPhone users to tap and pay at stores, restaurants, fuel stations, and other points of sale. This offering is likely aimed at credit card users and international payments, targeting a more upscale customer base in a market where India’s share of global cross-border payments market is estimated at $300 billion.
Apple’s hardware business is already strong in India, recording its highest-ever quarterly shipments in Q3 2025 with 5 million units sold, accounting for roughly a fifth of its total iPhone sales.
Head-to-Head with UPI
However, UPI dominates India’s everyday digital payments, controlling 85% of all digital transactions. Apple will not initially pursue integration with UPI due to complex regulatory and technical hurdles, putting it behind competitors. Google Pay, for example, processes about 7 billion UPI transactions per month, second only to the PhonePe payments app, and recently launched a credit card in the region—another foothold Apple has yet to establish.
Outside the UPI ecosystem, digital payments are scarce and shrinking. RuPay, the card network run by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), processed 1.2 billion transactions in 2023, falling to 938 million in 2024 and 664 million through November 2025.
Stumbling Blocks
Apple has eyed the Indian market since at least 2017, but bureaucratic and technical obstacles have consistently stood in the way.
India’s central bank requires data localization, meaning Apple must either build local data centers or partner with compliant Indian financial entities. Biometric identification, heavily regulated in India, has also posed challenges.