Square Cash Mobile Payments App Gaining on Venmo

An interesting new development recently jumped into view, based on a report from Barron’s that was in turn issued by Nomura Instinet. While Venmo is still a leader in peer-to-peer (P2P) mobile payments, its lead is not so pronounced as it once was. In fact, the report notes that Square Cash downloads are on the rise, more so than the rise for Venmo downloads.

The gap is narrowing fairly quickly, too; back in the middle of last year, Venmo led Square Cash by about five million. Ever since last July, though, that number dropped to around one million. Venmo still leads, but both companies have seen around 30 million downloads each, making the margin pretty narrow indeed. While Venmo has enjoyed gains—downloads are up about 74 percent—the download gain for Square Cash has been substantially higher, up around 128 percent since the opening days of 2016.

One of the biggest reasons cited for the much more substantial gain for Square Cash is that Square Cash allows users to both buy and sell bitcoin directly from the platform. That makes for one more use than Venmo really has, and thus gives it an edge.

Moreover, Square is rapidly expanding into new markets, which would ramp up its new downloads. Just a few weeks ago, Square Cash announced a move into the UK, which was the first international market for the company. It’s especially interesting that the UK version doesn’t even have the same functionality that the US version does; the UK version won’t let users buy and sell bitcoin, and even the Square Cash debit card won’t be immediately available.

With Square Cash moving into more markets, its download count trajectory should continue to rise, particularly if it steps into some other markets that are proving hospitable to mobile payments. Most of Southeast Asia comes immediately to mind, not to mention much of the rest of Asia. It might have been better had all the features been left in tact, but given the world’s varying stances on cryptocurrency purchases, some might not have been able to stay in legally.

Still, it’s looking like a good run for Square Cash, and if it can keep up the pace of international expansionism, it may get inertia on its side faster than Venmo can.