Korean Consumers Waiting for Apple Pay... Survey Shows Only 6% Use It in the US

9to5Mac, MacRumors and Other Foreign Media Reports
Among Users with Apple Pay Enabled
Only 6.1% Use Apple Pay at Retail Stores

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] A survey revealed that only about 6% of users in the United States use 'Apple Pay,' which has not yet been officially introduced in Korea.

IT specialized media outlets 9to5Mac and MacRumors reported on the 7th (local time), citing a survey conducted by Pyment of 3,671 U.S. consumers, which showed these results.

According to the survey, only 6.1% of users who activated the Apple Pay feature actually used Apple Pay for in-store purchases. The remaining 93.9% paid with cash or cards. This is only about a 1 percentage point difference compared to 5.1% at the time of Apple Pay's introduction in 2014.

However, it is considered a relatively good performance compared to the overall mobile wallet market. Due to the spread of COVID-19, in-store mobile wallet usage decreased by 26.2% between 2019 and 2021. During the same period, credit card usage increased by 33.8%, while cash usage decreased by 20.1%.

The slight increase in market share is believed to be mainly due to the expansion of usage locations. Apple promotes that Apple Pay is available at 85% of retail stores in the U.S. It is also estimated that the increase in users of iPhone models supporting the Apple Pay feature is another cause.

Pyment analyzed in the report that for Apple Pay to succeed, "innovation must solve problems, eliminate friction points, or improve experiences that motivate consumers or businesses to switch."

Meanwhile, rumors about the introduction of Apple Pay in Korea have recently spread again. Since 2015, Apple has held several negotiations with the domestic card industry to enter the Korean market with Apple Pay, but talks failed due to disagreements over the cost of NFC terminal deployment. However, recently Apple has shown moves to reduce Apple Pay fees, leading some to speculate about the possibility of its domestic introduction.