Millennial mobile payment adoption offers an important look at how younger consumers were changing the competitive landscape for digital wallets and person-to-person payments. Research indicated that millennials were more likely to use Apple Pay than competing universal wallets such as Samsung Pay or Google Pay, with particularly strong interest in online and in-app payments. However, traditional payment cards and established services such as PayPal continued to command substantially greater usage.
The findings also suggested that competition was expanding beyond the traditional digital wallet market. Person-to-person payment services were especially popular among young adults, while merchant-specific apps such as Starbucks and Walmart Pay attracted consumers by combining payments with other features. As these categories converged, the challenge for Apple Pay was not simply outperforming other device-based wallets but becoming more relevant across a broader range of digital payment experiences.
A recent UK blogger contents that Apple Pay’s popularity is growing as its presence expands internationally with greater use online than in stores. This blogger cited the results of a study of 1,000 American millenials on their use of mobile payments in stores and online, conducted by DataSpotr. According to this study, 15% of millennials used Apple Pay to shop online or in app while 10% have used it to pay in stores at least once, and more millennials use Apple Pay than Samsung Pay or Google’s Android/Google Pay, but still its use trails far behind PayPal and traditional payment cards. And, this study revealed that just 3% of millennials use the newly released Apple Pay Cash (3%) compared to the more popular brands, Venmo (23%) and PayPal (25%) to transfer money to family and friends.
“In an endless competition with its Android counterparts, Apple Pay seems to be winning the digital wallet race for the time being. “
No doubt that millennials are leading the way in mobile payments, person-to-person payments and mobile shopping, but is Apple Pay’s greatest competitor really Android/ Google Pay or Samsung Pay? The future of mobile payments appears to be converging with person-to-person payments where PayPal and increasingly Venmo and even Facebook are becoming more contenders in this space.
In fact, according to Mercator Advisory Group’s CustomerMonitor Survey Series Payments survey conducted online by a panel of 3,000 U.S. adults in June 2017, half of consumers surveyed use mobile payments to pay for goods and services, but more used a retailers mobile payment app such as from Starbucks or Walmart Pay, than Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Android/Google Pay or other universal mobile payment apps. And, frankly, mobile payment app use does not appear to be growing, and the frequency of use is growing only among the most familiar users who use it at least 10 or more times a month. And, fewer young adults use Apple Pay or other similar universal mobile payment app (used by just over half of young adults) compared to using P2P payments, a service used by 4 in 5 young adults.
Millennial mobile payment adoption demonstrated that younger consumers were comfortable experimenting with new ways to pay, but that did not guarantee widespread or frequent usage of universal mobile wallets. Apple Pay had an advantage over some competing smartphone wallets, yet services such as PayPal and Venmo remained formidable competitors, particularly for P2P payments.
The broader opportunity was increasingly about integrating payments into the digital experiences consumers already valued. As mobile commerce, merchant apps, digital wallets, and P2P services converged, providers needed to offer more than a convenient replacement for a physical payment card to drive sustained engagement.
Overview by Karen Augustine, Manager, Primary Data Services at Mercator Advisory Group
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