Top countries for mobile payments adoption ⋆

mobile payment - most cashless countries.

Top countries for mobile payments adoption

China remains the country with by far the highest mobile payments adoption rate, with 81.1% of smartphone owners making use of the technology, eMarketer reports.

Consumers in Denmark are the second highest adopters of in-store mobile payments at 40.9%, followed by India (37.6%), South Korea (36.7%) and Sweden (36.2%).

Germany (12.5%) and Mexico (10.2%), where the government has this month rolled out a national NFC and QR payments platform, currently have the lowest adoption rate among the 23 countries analysed by the market research firm.

The US (29%), Canada (26%), Norway (25.8%), Japan (25.3%) and Switzerland (22.3%) all fall under a ‘high adoption’ category while Italy (21.1%), Indonesia (19.8%), the Netherlands (19.7%), UK (19.1%) and Australia (18.8%) all have moderate adoption rates.

Finland (17.9%), Russia (17.2%), Spain (16.5%), France (15.6%), Argentina (14.5%) and Brazil (14.5%) are all listed as being ‘slow to adopt’ while Germany is very slow adapter with 12.50%, as already noted.

Use of China’s mobile payment services has skyrocketed over the past five years, with total transactions covered reaching 277.39 trillion yuan ($41.51 trillion) in 2018 — a more than 27-fold increase from five years ago, according to the central bank.

How many people worldwide use proximity mobile payments?

In 2019, we expect 36.3% of smartphone users to make an in-store mobile payment at least once every six months. Nearly all users will be in Asia-Pacific and mainly China, which will account for a majority of worldwide proximity mobile payment users this year. Proximity mobile payments are also popular among smartphone users in India, Denmark, Sweden and South Korea.

Which companies are the leading proximity mobile payment providers worldwide?

The big three—Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay—are the top providers on a global level, as well as in the US. Local players Alipay and WeChat Pay dominate in China, while Paytm leads in India. Mobile Pay, Vipps and Swish are notable for their strong adoption rates in the Nordic countries, while Mercado Pago has made inroads in less-developed markets in Latin America.

Alipay, the mobile payment arm of Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, remained as the No 1 preferred payment system among China’s super rich for the second straight year, according to the Hurun Chinese Luxury Consumer Survey 2018.

WeChat Pay, which is controlled by Tencent Holdings, was ranked the second most popular payment option according to the survey, reflecting the swift rise and popularity of mobile payments in the world’s second largest economy.