REUTERS: First it was Apple Watches that struggled then Apple Music, now Apple who is also having to contend with falling iPhone sales is witnessing less than robust demand for their apple Pay service especially in Australia.
More than 18 months after Apple Pay launched in the USA the multbillion dollar Company has only giant made only a small dent in the global payments market, snagged by technical challenges, low consumer take-up and resistance from banks.
The service is available in six countries including Australia.
According to Reuters, Apple Pay usage totaled $10.9 billion last year, the vast majority of that in the United States. That is less than the annual volume of transactions in Kenya, a mobile payments pioneer, according to research firm Timetric.
And its global turnover is a drop in the bucket in China, where Internet giants Alibaba and Tencent dominate the world’s biggest mobile payments market – with an estimated $1 trillion worth of mobile transactions last year, according to iResearch data.
Anecdotal evidence from the UK and Australia suggests Apple Pay is popular with core Apple followers, but the quality of service, and interest in it, varies significantly.
To use Apple Pay, consumers tap their iPhone over payment terminals to buy coffee, train tickets and other services. It can be also used at vending machines that accept contactless payments.
Apple Pay transactions were a fraction of the $84.5 billion in iPhone sales for the six months to March, which accounted for two-thirds of Apple’s total revenue.
In Australia, where Apple Pay launched a month ago, ANZ payment machines often fail to work.
“Bendigo Bank is experiencing some unforeseen technical issues in accepting Apple Pay payments at selected merchant terminals,” a spokeswoman for the bank told Reuters, adding that a lack of wider industry engagement in launching the service limited the lead time in testing the new technology.
Apple Vice President Jennifer Bailey said such experiences were premature and not representative. “Like any set of major technology changes, it takes time,” she said. “We want to move as quickly as possible, we push it as quickly as possible.”
