Apple Pay adoption is on the decline in the U.S.

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Apple in talks to bring Apple Pay to Israel
Keep calm, carry on using Apple Pay.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Apple Pay

Apple Music may be doing fantastically in terms of subscribers, but Apple isn’t having quite the same adoption success with Apple Pay, according to a new report.

Payment industry and retail data analysts at InfoScout and PYMNTS claim that the percentage of iPhone 6 users in the U.S. who have tried Apple Pay declined from 15 percent in March to 13.1 percent in June.

The number of “committed” users is falling, too. Back in March, the number of committed Apple Pay U.S. users was reportedly hovering around 48 percent, referring to the ones who would use Apple Pay in a store that accepted the payment technology. In June, that number had shrunk to 23 percent.

So what is to blame? PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster seems to take the view that Apple Pay is a solution in search of a problem.

“Paying for something at a counter in a store isn’t broken – Apple Pay was ‘fixing’ a pain point that doesn’t exist for consumers,” Webster said.

Elsewhere, Webster argues that:

“When Apple Pay launched, it did so with constraints on the user side – had to have the iPhone 6 – and the merchant side – had to have an NFC terminal – and nothing more than a way to pay as a consumer value proposition. When even the diehard early adopters didn’t go crazy for it at the start, it seemed a sure sign that their slog to ignition would only get harder. That’s certainly how it appears.”

Personally, I don’t think Apple has anything to worry about. Among everyone I’ve spoken with anecdotally about Apple Pay, no-one has reported a less-than-great experience with the service.

If usage rates decline over a longer period, Apple may have something to worry about, but it makes perfect sense that early adopters are more likely to jump on technologies like Apple Pay more quickly due to their love of tech. People buying the iPhone 6 now that it’s a year old are less likely to fall into this category, which also makes them less likely to seek out new technology like NFC payments.

It may take a while for everyone to cotton on to the technology but, when they do, I can’t see people going back.

Somehow I don’t see Tim Cook losing too much sleep over this one.

Source: PYMNTS

 

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