Hispanic Millennials Prove Big New Target for Mobile Payments

September 6, 2024         By: Steven Anderson

Demographics are an unusual study, as we look at just who’s using a product or service and deriving trends from that information.

One new trend that may be in the making features mobile payments front and center, which is proving popular with an unexpected new market niche: Hispanic millennials.

While millennials in general are embracing mobile payments, the Hispanic subsection seems to be moving just a little faster than normal in this market.

Millennials are proving an unusually tech-savvy group who’s starting to favor the digital in just about everything—though interestingly, its descendants Generation Z seem to be breaking away from that a bit as evidenced by earlier studies—but in this case, it’s particularly noteworthy.

Millennial Hispanics are actually the second largest segment of the Hispanic population, second only to Generation Z Hispanics under 18.

The millennials, as is commonly the case, are increasingly gravitating to mobile payments, but there’s further news proving interesting: those with higher incomes are actually proving more aware of and interested in mobile services than lower income counterparts.

Those whose household incomes are over $46,000 annually are 79 percent aware, while those with lesser incomes are 63 percent aware. Additionally, millennial Hispanics that were born in other countries actually have greater interest than those born in the United States; Apple Pay has 20 percent greater interest from the foreign-born—63 to 43 percent for US born—and Google Wallet is a bit closer at 64 to 53 percent.

Of course, the opportunity here is for mobile payments to make new inroads and find new business by focusing marketing efforts on Hispanic millennials.

There are only so many ways to do that, but a great way would be to expand the amount of places that can actually use mobile payments, with a particular focus on stores that Hispanic millennials frequent.

Those who move quickly here are more likely to get the biggest share of this comparatively new and growing market, and thus gain a clear edge over competitors.

It would be odd to think of the mobile payments market in terms of race, but with such a substantial market expressing favor in this direction, it’s almost unthinkable for companies not to follow up.

Just what form that follow-up will take, though, is as yet unclear and may determine the shape of the market for some time to come.

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