46 per cent of the US iPhone 6 owners surveyed by Auriemma Consulting Group have used Apple Pay, up from 42 per cent two months ago. The Group’s bi-monthly Apple Pay Tracker, which interviews a fresh sample of 500 iPhone 6 owners every eight weeks, also has 63 per cent reporting that they use the offering at least weekly.

“The Apple Pay base is broadening from the tech-savvy early adopters,” says Marianne Berry, managing director at ACG’s Payment Insights practice. In Wave 1 (conducted between 26 January – 06 February), 70 per cent of the users identified themselves as people who “like to be the first to have the newest model phone.” In Wave 2, conducted April 10-20, that figure had dropped to 55 per cent. Consistent with the finding that the newer users might be less technologically adept, a significant number are reporting problems in set-up. The April survey found that 45 per cent of respondents reported such issues. “Among those who reported issues setting up Apple Pay, 62 per cent acquired their iPhone in 2015, compared to 38 per cent who got their iPhone in 2014,” Berry notes.

This aside, user satisfaction is very high, and their main complaint is the lack of retail venues accepting the service. 67 per cent of those that have used Apple Pay in a brick and mortar store say they are migrating to merchants that accept it. And 51 per cent are now using other payment methods, such as cash, less often. “Mobile payments still comprise only a small fraction of overall payments volume,” says Berry. "But Apple Pay is the first service to garner double-digit numbers of users. As the upgrade cycle gives more consumers access to Apple Pay, and Android Pay comes to market, the long-awaited transformation of the payments industry may finally have begun. It will be interesting to see how US adoption patterns compare to those in the UK and in Canada—markets with higher penetration of NFC and contactless cards, when Apple Pay is rolled out there.”

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