How Are the ‘Pays’ Doing? Latest Research Says Usage Is Limited, But Users Are Happy

By John Stewart
@DTPaymentNews

Ever since Apple Pay debuted in 2014, payments pundits have wondered how fast mobile payments would catch on with consumers. The near-simultaneous arrival of two rivals, Android Pay and Samsung Pay, last fall only made the question more urgent. And now data is emerging that indicates the answer is: actual usage is limited, but regular users are pretty happy with the services.

The latest survey comes from New York City-based Auriemma Consulting Group, which released its revamped Mobile Payments Tracker on Tuesday. The survey, which queried 1,100 U.S. adults in March, found that 27% of those who have a smart phone that can support any of the three services has tried at least one mobile payment.

Frequent usage, however, is another story. Of the group that has used Android Pay, Apple Pay, or Samsung Pay, just 31% are paying with their phones regularly. “Reaching for the phone instead of the wallet isn't an automatic reflex, even for mobile-pay enthusiasts,” said Marianne Berry, managing director of Auriemma’s Payments Insights practice, in a statement. “And even if they do remember, many will give up and use their plastic cards if they encounter friction at the point of sale, particularly if there are other shoppers in line behind them.”

Friction remains an issue, as does the relative paucity of locations that have the equipment to accept the services. Thirty-nine percent of the users said they’d pay more often with the mobile wallets if more places and apps accepted them. Unlike Apple Pay and Android Pay, Samsung Pay can be used only in-store, but it works with mag-stripe terminals as well as devices equipped for near-field communication, the contactless technology Apple Pay and Android Pay rely on.

Still, among users, satisfaction rates are high. Some 92% said they were satisfied with Samsung Pay, followed by Apple Pay at 84% and Android Pay at 81%. User satisfaction, especially with the two newer wallets, surprised the Auriemma researchers. “For Apple Pay, we were expecting it to be that high,” Jaclyn Holmes, a senior manager at the firm, tells Digital Transactions News. “We weren’t necessarily expecting Android Pay and Samsung Pay to be that high, considering the newness of those systems.”

Auriemma’s research echoes recent results unearthed by Phoenix Marketing International, a Rhinebeck, N.Y.-based firm that follows the market. Its study, also fielded in March, found strong awareness and rising adoption for the three services, but weak usage. Like Auriemma, it attributes most of the usage problem to a scarcity of accepting locations. Just 8% of all U.S. points of sale have activated NFC, Phoenix researchers estimate.

After publishing bi-monthly results last year for Apple Pay, Auriemma this year will release findings for all three services quarterly, Holmes says.