New Data Shows Apple Pay Still Stuck In The Mud

Apple has remained relatively quiet on how well Apple Pay is doing, both transaction speaking and user-wise.

Until Apple decided to dish out the data, it’s up to analysts and investors to spout off their predictions, and it appears that’s what they’re going to continue to do. A new Bloomberg article provides the latest projections of just how well Apple Pay is doing and how it’s expected to trend over the next 3-5 years.

Citing research from a variety of sources — including PYMNTS and InfoScout’s report about Apple Pay adoption — the conclusion seems to be that Apple Pay is used for just 1 percent of retail transactions. And an Aite analyst suggests it’s going to be a slow burn over the next few years.

“People don’t know why it is they’d use Apple Pay,” Jared Schrieber, CEO of InfoScout, told Bloomberg. “They are satisfied with the current methods and they don’t know how Apple Pay works.”

One note about the Apple Pay data is that it can only tap into anecdotal evidence. A Kantar Worldpanel ComTech survey suggested that a majority (75 percent) of iPhone 6/6 Plus users haven’t tried Apple Pay as of the spring time. More recently, the PYMNTS/InfoScout research indicated that of the 1,5000 consumers surveyed, just 13 percent had tried Apple Pay.

In March, survey data indicated that 15.1 percent of eligible Apple Pay users had tried the service – when surveyed in June 2015 that had fallen to 13.1 percent. Usage fell as well – when asked in March, “Did you use Apple Pay on this transaction,” 39.3 percent of consumers said “yes.” When asked the same question in June, only 23 percent replied in the affirmative.

“These are people who have tried it, who just had a chance to use it because they were at their phone and were at a merchant who accepted it – but they just didn’t choose to use Apple Pay,” Schrieber said in August.

Apple Pay also seems to have seen a dip in its committed users. In March, 48 percent of iPhone 6 consumers in a store where they could use Apple Pay did. In June, that number had dropped to 33 percent.

And so far what has Apple’s response been about its adoption rates?

“We’re off to a great start and we are seeing continued, double-digit monthly growth in Apple Pay transactions since launch,” Apple said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg. “And our customers love Apple Pay — a recent survey found satisfaction rates of 98 percent. Merchants love it too and tell us that the added security and convenience Apple Pay brings their customers is a huge benefit.”

As for the future of Apple Pay, one analyst projected that Apple Pay’s growth will be slow, particularly before consumers begin to really buy into mobile payments.

“It’s going to grow reasonably slowly for the next three to five years, and then we are going to see a ‘hockey stick,’” Thad Peterson, an analyst at Boston-based Aite, told Bloomberg.

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