On August 21, 2026, Bloomberg reported that Walmart Inc. (NASDAQ:WMT) will accept Apple Pay and Google Pay across all its U.S. stores and Sam’s Club locations by the end of 2026, ending a years-long holdout. The rollout begins August 24 at select locations, with fuel stations gaining the capability by mid-2027.
Walmart had previously relied on its own proprietary Walmart Pay system, preferring QR-code technology that gave it more control over transaction data, rather than supporting near-field communication wallets like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s Apple Pay. Customers will be able to tap contactless cards, phones, or smartwatches at checkout and add Walmart, Sam’s Club, or OnePay cards to their digital wallets.
Bull Case
For Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), this closes one of the last major gaps in Apple Pay’s retail coverage. More than 90% of U.S. retailers already accept Apple Pay, and the service holds roughly 92% market share among U.S. mobile wallets, according to Capital One data. Adding the nation’s largest retailer removes one of the most visible remaining holdouts. It reinforces Apple Pay’s position as the default mobile wallet at checkout.
Apple Pay’s user base gives this rollout real reach from day one: Capital One estimates Apple Pay usership is on pace to grow from 70 million to more than 84 million users over the next four years. Walmart Inc. (NASDAQ:WMT)’s enormous foot traffic with an existing and growing user base gives Apple immediate transaction volume without needing to win over new wallet users.
Walmart is fixing something that annoyed shoppers, but they aren’t giving up on their own payment tools. Walmart wants customers to have a choice in how they pay, and Tap to Pay adds to, rather than replaces, cash, credit cards, and Walmart Pay. Reducing checkout friction and consumer complaints matters more now that agentic and NFC payments have become standard shopping behavior.
Bear Case
Walmart Inc. (NASDAQ:WMT) is giving up some of the data control it fought to keep. Payment analysts told American Banker that Walmart’s holdout was partly about retaining transaction data and marketing potential that flows through its own QR-based system rather than through Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s NFC infrastructure. Opening the door to Apple Pay means sharing some of that checkout relationship with a payments network Walmart does not control.
For Apple, the financial upside per transaction is likely modest relative to the headline significance of the deal. Apple Pay generally earns small per-transaction fees from card issuers rather than from merchants directly, so while Walmart’s scale is symbolically important, it may not move Apple’s own services revenue meaningfully on its own.
The rollout also arrives during a soft patch for Walmart’s core business. The announcement follows Walmart Inc. (NASDAQ:WMT)’s latest quarterly results, which included its slowest U.S. comparable sales growth in recent quarters. A payments upgrade does not address the more fundamental question of whether Walmart’s core U.S. sales momentum is slowing.
Conclusion
Both companies score an easy, high-profile win here, but neither gets a huge financial boost. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) wins by making Apple Pay usable almost everywhere and grabbing fees from millions of Walmart Inc. (NASDAQ:WMT) shoppers, but it risks making too little per transaction to change its overall bottom line. Walmart wins by speeding up checkout lines and cutting down on shopper complaints, but it loses valuable customer spending data just as its U.S. sales growth slows down.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
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