During his January conference call with investors, Tim Cook said that 2015 would be ‘the year of Apple Pay’, and while Apple’s mobile wallet has already leapfrogged rivals like Google Wallet, a new survey of the top 100 retailers in the country found that Apple Pay still faces a long uphill battle.
In an interview with Reuters, an Apple spokesperson said they’ve spoken to all of the top 100 merchants in the year and “about half will accept Apple Pay this year, with many more the following year.”
That sounds pretty good, but Reuters decided to speak with all 100 of the merchants themselves and found that nearly two-thirds have no plans to begin accepting Apple Pay this year. And only four companies said they’re already planning to join the program in 2016.
Insufficient customer demand was cited as the top reason for retailers not accepting Apple Pay, despite Apple’s aggressive marketing of the new mobile wallet. One top merchant said Apple has called to persuade their company to adopt Apple Pay even after they told Apple they wouldn’t because not even a “small percentage” of customers have asked for it.
Another reason for the slow of adoption has been the lack of access to data provided to merchants during Apple Pay transactions. Apple could address this in an Apple Pay 2.0 update that is expected to include loyalty programs and better merchant services, like those offered by StarBux. Other merchants said they’re holding out because they plan to take part in the CurrentC service launching later this year.
Some CurrentC supporters like Target and Best Buy have already announced plans to accept Apple Pay in the future, but the biggest hurdle towards mass adoption might be that iPhone 6 and Apple Watch owners aren’t using it enough. A survey of 1000 iPhone 6 users in March found that while 15 percent had tried Apple Pay, only 6 percent continue to use it.
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
5 responses to “Only half of top 100 retailers will accept Apple Pay by end of 2015”
I’ve had my bank card replaced by my financial institution when Target’s database was hacked and then again when the same thing happened to Home Depot. So when I hear retailers are planning to use CurrentC instead of the much more secure ApplePay because ApplePay won’t let them SPAM ME, I stop shopping there.
Besides wasn’t CurrentC supposed to be out two years ago? At this point I’d say the odds of it happening in that time frame are slightly better than Michelle Bachman’s apocalypse timetable, but only slightly.
Yes, I’ll feel stupid if it happens.
Its actually amazing that Apple Pay is being used as much as it is. Apple is on record as saying that this is just the beginning. It will take years for most people to A. Have an iPhone that can do Apple Pay at retail, and B. Want to use Apple Pay (or some other form of wireless payment). This is what is called a long term plan. Apple didn’t think Apple Pay would be used by everyone overnight.
Only half LOL, that’s a massive amount of uptake, this will take years for all retailers to accept Apple Pay, but I can tell you they’re off to a great start. Can’t wait for it to land over here in Australia!
In a few years when everyone has an iPhone with NFC capabilities, retailers will likely regret not getting a head start.
This really sucks. Especially when the reason retailers don’t want in is because they want more info from the transaction.