mPayment Users Skeptical About iPhone X’s Face ID: Survey

The new facial recognition system on Apple’s iPhone X is generating a lot of buzz, but a sizeable proportion of iOS users are skeptical about whether they would actually use it, according to new survey findings from Juniper Research’s new report, “Consumer Attitudes to Mobile Banking & Contactless Payments”.

Polling a thousand smartphone users evenly divided across the US and the UK, the market research firm found that over 40 percent of iOS users said they were unlikely to use facial recognition to verify mobile payments. At the same time, 74 percent said they were likely to use fingerprint sensors for authentication.

While that may primarily be a reflection of users’ familiarity with Apple’s Touch ID system – which is still going to be the main authentication mechanism on the new iPhone 8 devices – the survey also found that 62 percent said they were likely to use voice recognition for authentication, a feature that isn’t supported on iOS devices other than through third party apps. Still, it’s worth remembering that Touch ID took some time to really catch on, and Apple has shown a talent for pioneering unfamiliar new technologies in the mass market.

As for the mobile payment services themselves, Juniper Research found that in the US, 73 percent of respondents who are already using services like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Android Pay expect to use them more often going forward, while 39 percent of respondents who aren’t already using mPayment platforms expect to start doing so in the future.