Certify Report Shows Impact of Mobile Payments, Services in 2018

We put digital services to use quite a bit back in 2018, and there’s every sign that 2019 will be just as brisk. Certify recently sent us out a report that took a closer look at the digital services market-and by extension the mobile payments market that goes along with it-and what it found out was that there were some clear winners when it came to services that we could expense.

Certify’s 2018 SpendSmart Year in Review report revealed some of the top business travel and business expenses of 2018, which called on over 50 million total expensed items and about $3.3 billion in expense transactions throughout the year. Before the report even got into specifics, it revealed that digital brands were much more frequently called on than their physical equivalents in almost every area, from meals to transportation.

The specifics, meanwhile, were just as noteworthy. Uber secured its place as the most expensed brand for businesses for the third year running, taking 11 percent of all transactions with it. With 50 million total expenses analyzed, it’s clear that’s a lot. Starbucks came in a distant second with 4.1 percent, while Amazon stepped in at third with four percent. Amazon has actually been an up-and-comer on this list, taking fourth place in 2017 and fifth in 2016. Rounding out the top five, meanwhile, were Delta at fourth with 3.6 percent and American Airlines with 3.4 percent at fifth.

It’s not surprising here to see figures like these. Businesses need to get from place to place and not so many are willing to maintain a fleet. The company car concept has lost quite a bit of steam when a car can be hailed from anywhere via a smartphone, and it’s even less of a surprise to see Amazon step in with its cover-nearly-anything approach to doing business. It’s interesting to see that business travel hasn’t been slowed all that much despite the advent of readily-available cloud-based communications tools, but there’s always value in a personal touch.

Next year’s results will be especially interesting here; will Uber retain its top slot? Will Amazon make a further push into number two? The only way to find out will be to catch Certify’s report on 2019’s numbers in 2020.