A study published this week indicates the number of iPhone users that are willing to try out Apple Pay has declined over the past three months. The study also notes a decline in usage rates from both casual and previously committed iPhone users.
An ongoing survey conducted by InfoScout in cooperation with PYMNTS.com shows the number of eligible Apple Pay users who tried the service dropped from 15.1 percent in March to 13.1 percent in June. Further, respondents answering yes to the question, “Did you use Apple Pay on this transaction” fell from 39.3 percent to 23 percent over the same period.
Jared Schrieber, CEO of InfoScout noted: “As more and more people buy iPhone 6’s we are seeing a lower percentage of them adopting or trying Apple Pay. That shouldn’t necessarily be a surprise as we move from people who are early adopters and more likely to try things, to later adopters who are not.”
A surprisingly high number of users said they declined to use Apple Pay due to security concerns. 19% of those surveyed cited this as the reason they didn’t use the service. This was up from 15% in the previous survey period. Poor user experiences caused 4% to say they no longer use the payments service, out of fears it might not work.
Apple also apparently needs to do a better job of educating users, as the number of iPhone users who haven’t tried the service because they don’t know how it works rose 3 percentage points, from 31% in March, to 34% in June. (They should also stress the security features a bit more, if the numbers in the previous paragraph are to be believed. – Ed.)
While the survey was mostly a downer of a report, Apple Pay still remains one of the most popular touchless payment systems available, due to the iPhone’s huge user base. It should also be noted that the InfoScout survey covers only users in the United States, where users are more familiar with swiping a card, rather than using a tap-to-pay system.
Apple recently rolled Apple Pay out to the U.K., where tap-to-pay is more prevalent, and has plans to expand the service to China and Japan, where customers also have more familiarity with touchless transactions.
