Apple Pay to Continue European Expansion: Cook

Having penetrated the Scandinavian market last October, Apple Pay is now poised to expand its European presence. In Apple’s conference call on its latest quarterly earnings, CEO Tim Cook suggested that the company’s biometrically secured mobile payments system will soon make its debut in Norway, Poland, and Ukraine.

Cook didn’t offer a timeline for the expansion, and true to form he didn’t offer detailed fiscal information about Apple Pay’s performance. But he did offer a few tidbits about the platform’s growth, asserting that in the latest quarter Apple Pay doubled its account activations year-over-year, and that it tripled its transactions over the same period. That surely has something to do with its geographic expansion over the course of 2017, but it may also point to increase activity among its existing user base.

The emergence of Face ID may also have played a role. The iPhone X’s facial recognition system made headlines at its launch, and offers an even easier way to confirm transactions during the payment process. It couldn’t have made a huge impact, given how small the iPhone X user base is relative to those of other iPhone models, but if Apple includes the technology in more smartphones this year, it could pique more interest and curiosity in Apple Pay.

Sources: MacRumors, AppleInsider