LONDON–A new survey has found more than a quarter of the world’s citizens have used mobile payments, a number expected to rise to about a third in 2024, according to a new survey.
The data released by MoneyTransfers.com has uncovered that in fact 25.7% of people worldwide use mobile payments, a number expected to reach a share of 33.4% by 2024. In 2021, the global mobile payment market was worth $1.97 trillion and is set to grow at an annual rate of 29.1%, amassing a value of $11.3 trillion by 2028, according to the report.
“The growth of mobile payments arises from the declining use of cash, which will fall to just 12.7% of payments by 2024,” MoneyTransfer.com stated. “The demise of cash payments became apparent during the pandemic period as a result of individuals' desire to avoid physical contact as much as possible. The pandemic period thus saw an increase in mobile payments of 64.4%.
‘Significant Increase’
“However, it’s interesting to see just how significantly mobile payments increased in comparison to credit and debit cards,” the analysis continued. “The share of payments via mobiles was twice that via credit cards and triple that of debit card transactions. Continuous growth is anticipated for the mobile payments market, with users in the U.S. expected to spend on average $4,064.3 per year by 2025.”
Additional findings released as part of the survey and analysis include:
- The mobile payments market already has clear monopolies with Alipay and WeChat Pay holding the largest mobile payment market share, with 650 and 550 million users, respectively. Globally, the remainder of the top five companies in this sector include Apple Pay (507 million users), Google Pay (421 million), and PayPal (377 million).
- Apple Pay held the number-one spot in both the U.K. and U.S. In the U.K, 63% of mobile payment users cite using Apple Pay within the last year to complete transactions. In the U.S., 43.9 million Americans use Apple Pay and this number is only expected to rise by an additional 14.4 million by 2025, the company said. “However, not all key players within the mobile payments market are traditionally in the finance industry, Starbucks is exemplary of this, with the company boasting 31.2 million users of its mobile payment app - making it the second most popular in the U.S. following Apple Pay,” MoneyTransfer.com said. “This demonstrates that companies should not be dubious about entering the market based on the current competition as the market allows for companies to cater the service to their own brand rather than vice versa.
- China has so far led the way in mobile payment adoption, with 87.3% of smartphone users in China using their mobile wallets for contactless payments. “This figure is drastically ahead of other nations, with the second highest adoption rate in South Korea at 45.6% of smartphone users,” the analysis said. “America came in close second with 43.2%, however many nations are lagging behind. In particular Mexican and German natives are adopting at a much lower rate with just 14.2% and 19% of smartphone users, respectively, turning to mobile payments.”
- The demographic breakdown of mobile payments “uncovers an obvious trend that the digital payment method is favored by the younger generations. It was revealed that a staggering 84.6% of Gen-Zers and 81.3% of Millennials in the US had used a mobile wallet for payments at least once in the previous year. This was quite the contrast from Gen-Xers and baby boomers of which just 65.4% and 33.3%, respectively, cited the same,” the analysis stated.