Apple Pay Launch Week By The Numbers: 46B, 58M and 1

After weeks of waiting and speculating, Apple Pay went live and the payments industry stood back and watched things play out.  Something wonderful happened- lots of people suddenly took lots of interest in mobile payments and a small army appeared on Twitter to pay by phone.

But it’s still early days.  As the participants in PYMNTS Retail Reinvention Week’s webinar on the future of the mobile wallet –  day one, week one, month one and even year one aren’t really the point—the point is how Apple Pay is likely to evolve over time, how it is likely to change (or not) consumer and merchants habits and, to use our word, ignite mobile payments.

And, being the early adopters you are, maybe you even used your new iPhone 6 or 6 Plus to buy stuff. But if you really want to impress your friends this weekend, check out our Apple Pay Launch By-The-Numbers Cheat Sheet. We’ve summarized all of the known (and little known) facts and stats that was the week of Apple Pay. If you’ve got 10 minutes, we promise you’ll be the most popular person at the dinner table/soccer field/tailgate party/World Series bar bash this weekend.  .

42.1 Billion | The Number Of Dollars In Revenue Apple Took In During Q3

Apple’s third-quarter earnings came in just hours after Apple Pay launched, with Apple delivering several record-breaking revenue, sales and profit numbers.  The $42.1 billion revenue result was its strongest in seven quarters—up from last year’s $37.5 billion. Also impressive: net profit was $8.5 billion, up from $7.5 billion at the same time last year pumping up the share price from $1.18 per diluted share to $1.42 per diluted share. The most impressive number that Apple has in its arsenal though?  $164 billion– that is the amount of cash and cash equivalents the company has in reserve.

118 Million | The Number Of Dollars Piper Jaffray Forcasts Apple Pay Will Bring In this Year

Piper Jaffray is projecting Apple Pay revenue of $118 million this year and $310 million next year, which is “less than one percent of Apple’s estimated revenue of $180 billion” this fiscal year.  Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president in charge of Internet software and services, said that he expects the biggest share of early Apple Pay revenue to be from in-App (as opposed to in-store) purchases. That’s for two reasons. First, there is that in-store acceptance problem given the lack of terminals that can accept NFC payments today. Secondly, in theory, Apple Pay solves a bigger problem for mobile users and that is paying for things in one click. But let’s face it. Apple Pay is designed to sell phones and so far, it’s sold a boatload of them. Whether or not Apple Pay is the reason remains to be seen.

58.3 Million | The Number Of Hits Searching “Apple Pay Launches” Brings Up On Google

Whatever else happened this week, Apple did not suffer from lack of interest in it’s launch—as searching for it on Google pulled up nearly 60 million results.  Those looking for a more “editorial” take on Apple Pay could have tried Google News searches.  The good news? That eliminates 99.98 percent of the articles.  The bad news?  It would still leave an avid news hunter with around 100K things to read.  (F0r all the stuff you really need to know since day one of Apple Pay, check out our Apple Pay Tracker.

~1000 | The Approximate Number Of BoA Customers Who Were Double Charged Using Apple Pay

The first rule of a new product—make sure to pray to the Tech Gods that a glitch doesn’t make itself apparent on a CNN reporter’s copy of the product.  It seems someone at BoA or Apple forgot to say their prayers.   CNN reporter Samuel Burke discovered duplicate charges on his personal BOA debit card, which he used at Whole Foods and Duane Reade. Initially, Bank of America said it was an Apple issue and Apple pointed the finger back at BOA. By the day’s close, Apple was issuing statements calling it “a Bank of America issue” and Bank of America issued a statement indicating that it was preparing a fix.

10 | The Percent Gemalto’s Stock LostWhen Apple Announced Its SIM Cards

Without announcing it, Apple has quietly rolled out a new SIM card on its iPads (but not iPhones) that allows users to “jump between AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile” without having to swap it out a SIM card. News of this did not go over well with investors in Gemalto, which makes mobile smart chips, as Gemalto’s shared plunged 10 percent on Friday (Oct. 17). The news could also be troubling to mobile carriers, who have been holding on to hope for SIM lock-ins as giving them a controllable segment of the mobile payments pie.

1 | The Number of NFC Surprises Coming With The Next Wave of iPads

When it was announced that Apple was adding TouchID to the next gen iPad, some questioned whether it was a precursor to making ApplePay available as well.  That seemed unlikely, since the iPad did not seem to come with an NFC Chip.

Surprise!

According to reports from 9to5 Mac, “Teardowns of Apple’s new iPad Air 2 revealed an NFC chip that wasn’t officially announced by Apple. Sources close to the company note that the NFC is only there to act as “a secure element” for in-app purchases.

And in store payments when those iPads are turned into POS devices.