Mobile wallets rapidly emerging as a pivotal force in how consumers conduct in-store transactions worldwide.
In the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Pocket Revolution: How Mobile Wallets Are Changing Payments Worldwide,” responses from more than 216,000 consumers illuminated that mobile wallets now account for 21% of all in-store transactions across 11 studied countries, representing a substantial 10.9% increase since 2022.
No Longer Optional
This surge indicates that adapting to mobile-first behaviors is no longer optional for businesses to remain competitive.
Crucially, this shift isn’t about consumers abandoning established payment methods like credit or debit cards; rather, it signifies a change in how they interact with these methods. Mobile wallets effectively store and tokenize existing cards, offering consumers a faster, more secure and convenient way to pay through tap-to-pay functionality, biometric security and real-time credential access.
This means the underlying funding sources — primarily credit, debit and bank accounts — remain unchanged, but the consumer experience is dramatically enhanced through increased speed and control.
What’s Driving the Usage
Despite the overall global growth, the adoption of mobile wallets for in-store payments remains profoundly influenced by local behaviors, existing payment habits and specific market dynamics.
Markets such as Japan and Singapore are at the forefront, with 35% in-store usage, driven by factors like real-time rails, QR code integration, super apps and strong digital trust.
In contrast, countries like France (13%) and the U.S. (19%) show lower in-store wallet usage, primarily because entrenched card habits, the convenience of contactless cards, and, in some cases, major merchant strategies (such as Amazon and Walmart promoting their own wallets in the U.S.) pose significant barriers to broader adoption.
No One-Size-Fits-All Approach
This highlights that a one-size-fits-all approach is ineffective. Winning in the mobile-first landscape requires delivering clear consumer value — whether through rewards, enhanced convenience or simplicity — and meticulously tailoring payment experiences to specific local expectations and infrastructure, rather than just enabling digital access. Even within mobile wallets, local solutions like Pix in Brazil are capturing significant share gains, demonstrating the power of solutions closely tied to domestic infrastructure and habits.
While often perceived as a trend primarily driven by younger generations, mobile wallet adoption for in-store payments is steadily expanding across all age groups, signaling its transition into a mainstream payment behavior.
Generation Z undeniably leads this shift, showing a remarkable 23% increase in in-store mobile wallet usage since 2022, reflecting their preference for fast, app-based and biometric-enabled payments. However, the data confirms that growth is also evident among millennials, Generation X and even baby boomers, making mobile wallet use increasingly age-agnostic.
For financial services providers and merchants, success hinges on recognizing the nuanced interplay of form factor innovation, localized consumer behaviors and the expanding cross-generational appeal of these digital tools, ensuring strategies deliver tangible value in an increasingly mobile-first world.
