A quick search on Twitter reveals that Walmart faces numerous requests to accept Apple Pay on a daily basis, but the big-box retailer still does not accept the iPhone's tap-to-pay service at its over 4,700 stores across the United States.
Walmart has instead committed to its own payments service called Walmart Pay, available through the Walmart app on the iPhone. Instead of using NFC technology like Apple Pay and many other mobile wallets, Walmart Pay allows customers to scan a QR code displayed at checkout to pay for their purchase with a payment card stored in the app.
"We do not accept NFC and instead have implemented convenient solutions, such as Walmart Pay, that provide our customers easy, touchless payments on any smartphone," a Walmart spokesperson told MacRumors this week. "We have also invested in innovative technologies that go beyond payments, such as Scan & Go, which allow Sam's Club and Walmart+ members to bypass the checkout altogether."
There are certainly some benefits for Walmart in pushing its own mobile payments service, including getting more customers to download the Walmart app, being able to track a customer's purchase history, and avoiding Apple Pay fees, but it's clear that Walmart is ignoring one of its customers' most frequent requests as a result.
Apple Pay launched just over eight years ago, on October 20, 2014. In a press release earlier this year, Apple said that Apple Pay is accepted at more than 90 percent of U.S. retailers, with some major holdouts including Walmart, The Home Depot, Lowe's, and Kroger. Walmart did start accepting Apple Pay in Canada in late 2020.
