Apple Pay surpasses Starbucks as the most popular platform in America, per report

Apple can claim one more token of tech supremacy. A new report says Apple Pay has surpassed Starbucks’ mobile app as the most popular mobile payment platform in America.

The report comes from industry research company eMarketer, which says that, since its last report in May 2018, Apple Pay became number one and is cementing its status in 2019 by growing faster than expected. 

According to the report, Apple will have 30.3 million users in the U.S., while Starbucks will have 25.2 million users for second place. Google Pay is in third with 12.1 million users, and Samsung is in fourth with 10.8 million users of Samsung Pay. 

All told, 47.3 percent of “proximity mobile payment users” use Apple Pay, which is a pretty hefty number; 39.4 percent use Starbucks’ mobile payment system to buy all those pumpkin spice lattes. 

Of course, as eMarketer notes, there’s a limit to Starbucks’ mobile payment growth as compared to platforms like Apple Pay since you can only use Starbucks’ platform at, well, Starbucks. 

Meanwhile, Apple Pay is rolling out to a wider and wider audience, including major transit systems. And a March 2019 report from Digital Trends claimed that Apple Pay will be available in 70 percent of U.S. retailers by the end of the year. 

In case you’re wondering, yes, Starbucks accepts Apple Pay.

Source: https://mashable.com/article/apple-pay-passes-starbucks-mobile-payment/