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Just a few years ago, paying with a smartphone still felt very new. However, today most people barely think twice about it, whether it’s grabbing coffee, ordering food, paying for a train ticket, or buying something online at 1 a.m. This trend has been fueled by our busy lives today, in which people just want payments to be quick and easy.
One of the biggest names in the digital payment space is Apple Pay. Since launching in 2014, it’s gone from being a feature people were curious about to something millions of people now use every day. Apple Pay is now available in 89 countries and regions and has more than 500 million users worldwide.
Below, we will explore how it became so popular.
What Exactly Is Apple Pay?
Apple Pay is a digital wallet that is built into Apple devices. People that own any Apple product including an iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, or Mac, can use their device to pay instead of pulling out a physical debit or credit card.
Most people use it for tap-to-pay purchases in stores, in which you hold your phone or watch near the card machine and then the payment goes through in a second or two. There’s no swiping cards, no entering PINs for every small purchase, and no searching through your wallet while people wait behind you in line.
It also works online and inside apps, which is one of the reasons so many people end up sticking with it. Buying something becomes way less annoying when you don’t have to type in your card number and billing address every time.
Going Global
Apple Pay first originated in the United States, however it quickly became popular in many places overseas. Over the years, Apple has expanded into Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Latin America, and many other other markets.
A lot of this expansion has depended on partnerships with banks and retailers as Apple couldn’t just show up in a country and switch the service on overnight. The company needed banks, payment providers, and stores to support it first.
Some countries were able to adopt it faster than others, such as in Europe where contactless payments were already common, meaning using a phone instead of a card wasn’t a huge leap. Similarly, in Asia-Pacific, mobile-based services were already part of everyday life, which also made adoption easier. And in North America, Apple Pay benefited from something pretty simple: a lot of people already owned iPhones.
Over time, the more stores that accepted Apple Pay, the more useful it became. Over a short period of time, more people started using it, which pushed even more businesses to add support.
What is fueling the demand for ApplePay?
The biggest reason people are gravitating towards ApplePay as a way of paying for almost everything is convenience. When we think of it this way, people already spend half their lives on their phones, so paying with them feels natural now. Shopping, banking, food delivery, streaming, and messaging all revolve around the use of our smartphones, so this became the natural next step.
Apple Pay has also become increasingly popular in online casino environments, where players value fast, secure, and frictionless deposits and withdrawals. The demand for Apple Pay casinos in Canada has grown so strongly that review platforms such as Casino.ca actively profile and rank the best options for users looking to use this payment method. This reflects how widely adopted Apple Pay has become, extending beyond everyday shopping into regulated entertainment sectors where speed and trust are especially important for users.
What’s more, the pandemic changed payment habits in a big way. Contactless payments suddenly became the preferred option almost everywhere, and a lot of people who started using digital wallets during that time never reverted back.
Dominating the Market
At first, many people mainly used Apple Pay for quick in-store purchases, however now it’s used for pretty much everything.
Common uses include:
- online shopping
- subscriptions
- transportation and transit passes
- food delivery apps
- tickets and entertainment
- everyday purchases
Online checkout is where ApplePay usually saves the most time. Nobody enjoys typing out card numbers over and over again and especially on mobile. Apple Pay cuts that whole process down to a couple of taps, creating more convenience than ever.
In addition, for businesses, that smoother checkout experience can also help reduce abandoned carts because customers are less likely to quit halfway through a purchase.
Security Concerns
Convenience is the number one demand in today’s world, however security is also a huge concern.
Apple Pay uses factors like Face ID, Touch ID, and tokenised payment information, which in simple terms means stores don’t directly get your actual card number during transactions. This adds peace of mind without making payments more complicated. Customers still get a fast checkout experience, but with extra layers of protection built in.
Apple has also spent years building its image around privacy and security, and that definitely helps people feel more comfortable trusting the platform with payments.
What Happens Next?
Digital wallets are most likely going to fuel a lot more than just payments in the future.
We’re already seeing phones replace things people used to carry physically, and that’ll likely continue. Things like IDs, boarding passes, loyalty cards, transit passes, and even government services could eventually live inside digital wallets too.
At this point, the idea of leaving home with only your phone doesn’t even sound strange anymore.
Overall, Apple Pay now reaches around 89 markets and more than 500 million users, which suggests a lot about where payments are heading. People want fast, simple, secure ways to pay, and mobile wallets fit naturally into how most people already live.
As contactless payments continue growing, Apple Pay looks like it will continue to dominate the industry.
Disclaimer: The press release above isn’t produced by Insider Monkey’s editorial team. We don’t verify the contents of press releases for accuracy. It is strongly recommended that you perform due diligence before investing or trading in anything, including consulting a professional financial advisor.
