A new report by The Wall Street Journal looks at the early performance of Apple's new electronic payments service, Apple Pay, finding strong signs of momentum behind the service. One of the key signs of interest in mobile payments comes from point-of-sales system suppliers seeing drastic increases in retailer interest following the launch of Apple Pay last October.

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Harbortouch has offered free wireless readers to its retailer clients since 2012, and in the month following the Apple Pay launch 68 percent of client orders asked for the readers supporting wireless payments. As of August of 2013, only 22 percent of its clients had installed such readers in their stores.

“It’s like night and day,” said Brendan Lauber, Harbortouch’s chief technology officer. “Now, merchants are actively coming to us and asking how to support this.”

The Wall Street Journal piece also covers the general surge in public acceptance for the service, remarking on recent stories that Apple Pay now supports cards representing about 90 percent of the credit card purchase volume in the United States, and that Apple's upcoming financial reports for the latest quarter may provide more details.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay

Top Rated Comments

Nicky G Avatar
109 months ago
Love using Apple Pay (woot Whole Foods!) and can't wait for CurrentC to utterly fall apart so those retailers who have gone out of their way to block wireless payments at terminals that do technically accept them can move on and support Apple Pay already!
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Robert.Walter Avatar
109 months ago
This would be a good use of ibeacons; they could announce to user that apple pay was accepted in store.

I just wish some of the laggards like costco and Kroger would add apple pay functionality to their pos systems.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
avanpelt Avatar
109 months ago
Apple Pay is a great idea, but will never dominate the market since they don't have the majority marketshare worldwide.

True, but Android does have majority market share worldwide and many Android handsets have supported NFC payments for years via Google Wallet. I don't care what NFC-compatible service customers are using on their devices (and retailers shouldn't care, either).

The retailers just need to buy NFC-capable POS units and deploy them with the NFC functionality turned on. Apple Pay is the best thing that could've happened for Google Wallet in terms of helping bring NFC payments more into the mainstream.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nagromme Avatar
109 months ago
Maybe Apple should give away nice, distinctive free sticky-badges that say "Apple Pay is accepted where NFC is available," and show the NFC logo. It would let stores claim ApplePay support AND educate people on how to recognize other ApplePay-ready locations, that may not even realize their system supports it.

(http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/973837)
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
extricated Avatar
109 months ago
I'm convinced that Apple Pay is one of the best moves Apple has made in awhile. As more people phase out their old iPhones (me included), this will continue to grow by leaps and bounds. Not to mention the upcoming Apple Watch - which will put this tech on the wrists of ... well, who knows how many?
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Karma*Police Avatar
109 months ago
After my Amex got hacked I now use Apple Pay whenever it's available and often seek out merchants that support Apple Pay.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)