Apple Pay in Asia and Europe
Apple is looking to expands Apple Pay throughout the world. Apple’s goal is to introduce the service to “every significant market” in which the company is involved.
Apple Pay is currently available in six countries throughout the world, U.S, U.K, Canada, China and Australia. Apple is looking to expand Apple Pay in Asia and Europe, specifically Hong Kong and Spain. Earlier this week, VP of Apple Pay explained the company’s plan to expand business in Singapore. The service will be supporting five major banks, that’s 80 percent of cards in the country.
VP of Apple Pay Jennifer Bailey said that the company is “working rapidly” to extend the mobile payment service in Asia and Europe. She, however, did not disclose the countries next in line. Jennifer Bailey also explained what the company’s criteria is for the introduction of the service in a country.
“First, we look at the size of the market for Apple products,” she said. “We also look at credit and debit card penetration, and [existing] contactless payment coverage”.
“[But] when we bring Apple Pay to market even when contactless is low, it will grow — it was 4 percent in the U.S. but is now 20 percent. We also work with our network partners, where we can utilize integration with Amex and Visa, to go to market quickly.”
In February, Apple introduced the service in China. According to Bailey, “the service is really successful” and Apple is “seeing incredible user and developer reception”. She also added that many consumer companies are adding the digital payment service to their apps. In previous reports, the service had three million provisions in China in its first three days. The service initially supported 12 bank locations. The number has now risen to 19.
The Apple Pay service is provided across 2500 bank locations in the U.S. Back in 2014 when the service started only six bank locations were supported. Apple is looking to introduce Apple Pay to ATMs.
According to rumors, France, Hong Kong, India, and Brazil may be next in line to get the mobile payment service.