Apple Pay ousts PayPal as US' most supported mobile wallet
Apple Pay is the most supported payment service among US retailers with 36% accepting payment via the mobile wallet, according to a Boston Retail Partners survey of over 500 top North American retailers. PayPal proved the second most popular with a 34% acceptance rate, followed by MasterCard PayPass (25%) and Android Pay (24%). Within the next year, 22% of retail businesses said they were looking to accept Apple Pay and 18% planned to accept Android Pay. Only 11% of retailers had "no plans" to implement in-store mobile payments.
Apple Pay has the largest percentage of supporting US merchants with 36% accepting the mobile payment service today, up from 16% last year, research released by Boston Retail Partners (BRP) reveals. Some 22% of retailers are planning to accept Apple Pay in the next 12 months and 11% plan to do so within the next one to three years, while 31% are adopting a “wait and see” approach.

PayPal falls in second place with a 34% acceptance rate, followed by Mastercard PayPass (25%), Android Pay (24%), Visa Checkout (20%), Samsung Pay (18%), Chase Pay (11%) and private label mobile wallets with 4%, the 18th annual edition of the POS/Customer Engagement Survey shows.

18% of more than 500 top North American retailers surveyed are planning to accept Android Pay within the next 12 months, with 13% planning to accept it within the next one to three years, while 11% are planning to accept Samsung Pay in the next 12 months, with 7% planning to accept it within the next one to three years.

Only 11% of the retailers have “no plans to implement” mobile payment acceptance within the store environment, while 24% of overall respondents have already done so and say the system is “working well.” 9% are offering mobile coupons, specials and promotions, while 7% are offering mobile loyalty programs.

Changing arena

“There are a multitude of mobile wallets and payment apps on the market today, and the arena keeps changing,” says BRP. “In the past year, we have seen the demise of the merchant-backed CurrentC and rise of Walmart Pay.

“PayPal has been bumped out of its top spot in this year’s survey, with Apple Pay now being accepted at 36% of the retailers participating in the survey. This is up significantly from 16% last year, and signals a growing acceptance by retailers and customers.”

“This year, fewer retailers are adopting a wait and see approach for Apple Pay and PayPal — likely because of the growing support from the payment software ecosystem and the acceptance for these mobile payments by the public.”

“One of the critical factors for any mobile payment success going forward is education. We have found repeatedly that not only are consumers unsure of how and when mobile payments can be used but, even more telling, associates are unsure,” BRP adds.

“For mobile payments or mobile wallets to succeed, there must be further education at the point of sale to ensure that a transaction using a mobile device is not longer or more complicated than traditional payments methods for either the customer or associate.”

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