Report Shows Mobile Wallet Usage Rates will Continue to Rise Through 2020

The growth of mobile wallets doesn’t look like it’s likely to slow down anytime soon. That’s according to new research from Germany’s yStats.com, which indicates that the usage rates for Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay will continue to rise through 2020.

Apple Pay was the most popular of the three, and is expected to keep that lead thanks to a rapidly growing user base that jumped from 252 million to 383 million between August and March, according to analyses from Loup Ventures. However, preferences vary depending on location. For instance, Samsung Pay had an edge in South Korea, while people in Russia and Turkey were more likely to rely on Google Pay when shopping online, yStats.com says.

All three payments platforms faced stiff competition in Asia thanks to the prevalence of local options like Alipay and Paytm. PayPal was the most popular in-store mobile wallet in the United States, though it only had a slight lead over Apple Pay, which is now supported by most major retailers and offers strong biometric authentication in the forms of Touch ID and Face ID.

Europe and North America offered the most support for mobile wallets, but there are still major growth opportunities in Africa and Latin America, which have largely been overlooked in the mobile wallet race. The three major players will likely spend more time in those regions as they continue to expand coverage for their respective platforms in the years to come.