Apple Pay has taken the title as the most popular mobile payment platform in the United States.
Per new data from eMarketer, Apple Pay has surpassed Starbucks in the US.
Starbucks adopted mobile payments relatively early on, and incentivized users with rewards and features such as ordering ahead. As such, Apple Pay and other mobile payment platforms have largely been playing catch up with Starbucks until now.
Apple Pay’s user base is expected to reach 30.3 million users in the United States during 2019. Starbucks is expected to have 25.2 million users this year, followed by Google Pay at 12.1 million and Samsung Pay at 10.8 million.
The eMarketer report cites Apple Pay’s wider adoption as a point-of-sales system given its NFC compatibility. The Starbucks app, uses barcodes as opposed to NFC.
Starbucks itself has also adopted Apple Pay support in-store and in-app. For instance, in the Starbucks mobile app, you can use Apple Pay to reload your Starbucks virtual card.
Apple itself has heavily touted Apple Pay growth recently. During Apple’s last earnings call, CEO Tim Cook said that Apple Pay growth has surpassed PayPal in terms of transaction volume and new user growth. Apple will report its Q4 2019 earnings on October 30.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.