Apple And The Telco Dilemma

What’s a telecom operator to do? Not support Apple Pay and get left behind? Support Apple Pay and compete against internal payments projects?

On the one hand, Apple drives mobile traffic—thousands and possibly millions over the next week will be showing up to purchase their own piece of the American dream in the form of an iPhone 6.

Then again, around the world, telecos are creating their own m-pay products, like SoftCard in the U.S. or Weve in the U.K. and supporting Apple means competing against their own products.

“The device manufacturers can actually put that ecosystem together in a way that the telecom providers thus far have been unable to do,” said David Blackwell, analyst at consultancy Deloitte.

So far, telecos are looking to cooperate instead of compete.  The telecom association that is Softcard has announced that it is working diligently with Apple to make sure that SoftCard can exist alongside Apple Pay on iPhone models going forward.