Apple Pay is 'Growing at a Tremendous Rate' With 5X More Transaction Volume Than Last Year

During today's second quarter earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook spent some time talking about the success of Apple Pay, which he says is "growing at a tremendous rate." According to Cook, Apple Pay transaction volume is up 5X compared to a year ago and Apple Pay is gaining 1 million new users per week.

Across all of the countries where Apple Pay is available -- the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, China, and Singapore -- Apple Pay is now available at more than 10 million contactless locations, including 2.5 million in the United States.

Despite its growth, Apple Pay does not provide a significant amount of revenue for Apple, but Apple CFO Luca Maestri says the company is interested to see how Apple Pay progresses in the future.

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During the call, Cook said Apple Pay would expand to additional locations "soon," in line with rumors and evidence suggesting Apple Pay will soon be available in Spain, Hong Kong, Brazil, Japan, and France. For Spain and Hong Kong, Apple Pay will be introduced through a partnership with American Express in 2016, and a leaked MasterCard document points towards MasterCard support in Brazil, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore.

In addition to expanding Apple Pay's availability, Apple is also rumored to be working on several new features to increase its appeal, including the ability to make purchases from websites and the ability to make person to person payments as is possible with services like Square Cash and Venmo.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay

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neuropsychguy

40 months ago

I sometimes go out of my way to use Apple Pay. It's been nearly flawless in all the times I've used it.

Rating: 13 Votes

CPx

40 months ago

Person-to-person would be great.

Rating: 10 Votes

_mdavenport

40 months ago

Ability to pay in websites would be a very welcome addition. Peer-to-peer would be interesting as well, especially if integrated with Siri...

"Hey Siri, send $10 to John for tacos." Then simply authenticate with Touch ID.

Rating: 6 Votes

Chupa Chupa

40 months ago

Apple Pay on eBay would be huge & great way to bypass PayPal. Now that eBay has divested PP I wonder if that is doable.

Rating: 5 Votes

nortofthe13th

40 months ago

I sometimes go out of my way to use Apple Pay. It's been nearly flawless in all the times I've used it.

I have to confess. I do this quite often. :)

Rating: 4 Votes

username:

40 months ago

Something I was wondering though - how does it work with the watch? Do you just wave the watch at the terminal, or does it need the fingerprint too?

Just wondering how you do it one handed with the watch.

Just wave the watch, no finger print needed

Love Apple Pay in the UK. A fair amount of support for it here. I feel insulted when a store makes me get my wallet out, like "who do you think you are making me put all this effort in to give you money" lol

Rating: 4 Votes

iMerik

40 months ago

I'm thinking we'd need to be able to link checking accounts to Apple Pay for P2P to work.

And using Apple Pay on websites and pretty much everywhere would be quite welcome. Wouldn't that be neat if I was buying something on my computer with Apple Pay and as the transaction is going through, my phone prompts me to authorize it?

Rating: 3 Votes

kdarling

40 months ago

Why are chip cards so slow in the U.S.? Typically here it takes a second or two for the card reader to prompt you to enter you pin number and after that another second or two for the transaction to be authorised. All in all it's very fast.

I think it mostly seems slow to us here in the US because we're using to swiping and putting away our card while the transaction churns. Also, since there's no PIN to enter, the time the card is inserted seems extra long.

However, as others have noted, Visa and MC are putting out new terminal updates which will make it seem faster again by doing the card info exchange first, and letting people fairly quickly pull out their card to put away as before.

They'll say that and then proceed to swipe their card through the terminal. I'm embarrassed to live in America sometimes. Thanks media for providing a bad reputation for these types of cards!!

No need to be embarrassed. According to the records I've read, almost every country actually took several years to get used to it. They just don't remember all that now ;)

Also, I hate the noise those terminals make when the card was successful.

True! Everyone does. Who chose that sound? It sounds more like an error transaction than a success. Woof.

I think its because currently, the machines can only see a contactless payment as being 'unverified' and so default to the £30 limit. The software/firmware needs updating so that the code can identify Apple Pay as being a 'verified' contactless payment, and so remove the limit. I suppose thats a big deal for a supermarket chain to impliment, too many people to sign off to make it happen quickly.

The terminal doesn't know or care that it's Apple Pay or Android Pay or whatever.

But the terminal has to be updated enough to recognize the standardized On Device Customer Verification flag that Apple Pay sends (and which any other payment method could, but does not yet).

Rating: 2 Votes

johngordon

40 months ago

Only started using it recently, and absolutely love it.

I'm often out with my phone in my hand for music so it's incredibly convenient.

Be good if they could incorporate store loyalty cards into it though - if the point is to eliminate the need to get your wallet out, then it's a shame you still need to get it out for the loyalty cards.

Rating: 2 Votes

dave2010

40 months ago

I find using my contactless Visa card is quicker than using Apple Pay. I also get 2% cash back and I can rely on it everywhere- the only place is use cash is one bakery I like that still has a $10 minimum purchase limit for cards

Rating: 2 Votes

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