FWIW, I disagree that Apple needs more merchants to accept Apple Pay any time soon. The existing sample is more than sufficient for Apple to learn what works and what doesn't at the point of sale. There's time enough for more merchants after a couple more rounds of iteration.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141110210329-6263556-is-apple-pay-designed-to-fail?trk=prof-post