Only 2 percent of Americans use mobile wallets such as Apple Pay and Google, according to a recent report from Gallup. While smartphone use is widespread, just 13 percent of smartphone owners have downloaded a mobile wallet app (see Weekly Infobyte) and 76 percent of those who have rarely — if ever — use it. More than half of survey respondents said security concerns were the primary impediment to using them, while about a fifth said they didn’t know enough about mobile wallets and 14 percent said they saw no benefit over using plastic.
No one wallet provider dominated the market; Google Wallet, Apple Pay and PayPal together accounted for 81 percent of customers’ preferred wallets. Only 2 percent of wallet users said that they primarily used a mobile wallet offered by their bank. Among leading wallet providers, Apple Pay saw the highest levels of user engagement, with 37 percent of users “fully engaged,” compared with 30 percent for Google Wallet and 25 percent for PayPal.
