WSJ: ‘Wait, When Did Everyone Start Using Apple Pay?’

Ben Cohen, writing last month for The Wall Street Journal:

The percentage of iPhones with Apple Pay activated was 10% in 2016 and 20% in 2017, according to research from Loup Ventures, as most people seemed perfectly happy with their plastic cards and leather wallets. Adoption nearly doubled again in 2018. It hit 50% by 2020. Now it’s around 75% and inching closer to ubiquity. Of course, not every account that gets activated remains in active use.

So what changed? We did. Apple’s executives remained confident about the future even when the present wasn’t so rosy because they could look at the rest of the world’s acceptance of contactless payments and see that the U.S. was lagging years behind.

Apple excels at playing long games. Apple Pay is one example that started well — even though that good start was dismissed by skeptics — and has grown steadily. Apple Maps is an even better example, because it started terribly, but now is quite competitive.

★ Friday, 2 September 2022