Mobile Wallets Still New Territory

Poll shows that while familiarity is growing, mobile payment is still anyone’s game.

February 27, 2015

NEW YORK – While mobile payment has been all the talk since Apple Pay launched last fall, the reality is it’s still very early in the development and adoption of such payment technology. According to USA Today, a new survey conducted by Harris Poll suggests there is still plenty of opportunity for all the many companies that have a stake in the game.

According to the poll, more than four in five smartphone owners are now familiar with mobile payment options offered by credit card companies, and just over one in three people surveyed have used such a service. These consumers are almost equally divided among mobile payment services provided by their phone manufacturer, credit card companies and Internet companies. The poll also found that more people are getting comfortable with the idea, with 68% indicating it is at least somewhat important to make a purchase on their smartphone.

While Apple continues to broaden the ecosystem for Apple Pay, rival Samsung recently acquired LoopPay, whose technology permits mobile payments at more than 90% of the existing point-of-sale terminals. Earlier this week, Google acquired Softcard, which was created in 2010 from a partnership with AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon.

“Consumers are clearly ready for mobile payments,” Kathryn Koegel, chief of insights and communications at Steampunkt Collaborative, which analyzed the Harris data for Placecast, told USA Today. “People are using their phones to conduct research, get discounts and deals, compare prices, find elusive items and navigate around stores. We are only a short step away from completing that circle by finishing the actual transaction with a mobile wallet.”

Not surprisingly, Millennials are considered a prime target market for mobile payments, with nearly half having used a credit card-based mobile-payments service at least once and 39% using it regularly or occasionally. Other findings of the poll include: Men are more likely than women to have heard of and used mobile payments services. And awareness and usage is significantly higher among people with household incomes north of $50,000.

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