Apple Pay Trouncing Google and PayPal on In-Store Purchases

While for many, PayPal is one of the first names to leap to mind when it comes to payments made online, the same doesn’t appear to hold true when it comes to mobile payments made in store.

Indeed, a recent study suggests that Apple Pay—though only being around for the last few months—is handily beating out both Google and PayPal in the in-store payments space.

The word from Boston Retail Partners suggests that by the end of 2015, 38 percent of large retailers will have support for Apple Pay.

By the end of 2017, meanwhile, that number is set to swell to 56 percent, which may make it the most widely used of mobile payment platforms among larger retailers, a development that the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) will likely not take lying down.

Some even believe that Apple Pay is likely to spur retailers to bring in near-field communications (NFC) options so as to better be able to accept Apple Pay. This is a point that might seem like a stretch, but given that the NFC handset shipment stock is set to go from 140 million in 2012 to potentially clear a billion strong by just 2017, it seems less like a pipe dream and more like good business.

That’s a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 48 percent, and no mean feat.

However, there are some concerns. Perhaps the biggest one is the limited usage of Apple Pay seen so far; while there are plenty of Apple users out there, around 40 percent of iPhone 6 users have actually tried Apple Pay.

Interest is on the rise, according to Apple, but use is still somewhat restricted. But this may be a function of usefulness; why would Apple users use Apple Pay if no store around them takes the service as payment? But Apple’s working on that too, reportedly, with plenty more banks and stores coming on board.

Indeed, it’s way too early to suggest Apple Pay’s use is too limited to make it a force in the market.

Even the current reports don’t put it in half of major retailers by the end of this year, so it’s still going to be a while before we can accurately gauge just how many people turn to this service.

The upshot, though, is that what we’ve already seen suggests that it’s got plenty of potential for upward mobility.

It’s already in pretty wide, if limited, use, and the numbers suggest it’s about to hit many more places before it’s all said and done.

I admit, I haven’t seen many stores take PayPal; the first time I saw a PayPal sticker on a gas pump, I thought someone just put a sticker on the pump as opposed to it being a signal that PayPal was accepted at this station. I was surprised to see that the latter was the case.

Only time will tell if Apple Pay becomes the big new payment system of the future, but current results suggest that it’s already taking out a lot of major, established names on its way to the top. It may not be able to stay that way forever, but with more possibilities coming into view, Apple Pay could just have success at its core.