OEM Pay Users to Reach 450 Million by 2020, Apple Pay Leads

Despite the presence of numerous players, Apple Pay (NASDAQ:AAPL) will account for one in two original equipment manufacturers (OEM) pay users by 2020 says a new study from Juniper Research.

According to the report issued on Wednesday (June 27), the overall mobile contactless user base is expected to reach 760 million in 2020 up from an estimated 440 million in 2018.

Juniper Research said that the OEM pay wallets of major players like Apple, Samsung (KRX:00530) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) will have a user base of roughly 427 million, while the wallet services of Huawei, Fitbit (NYSE:FIT) and Garmin (NASDAQ:GRMN) will make up 22 million for a total of roughly 450 million by 2020.

Case in point being the growth of Apple Pay user base, which is expected to touch 227 million in 2020, up from an estimated 140 million in 2018. Samsung Pay and Google Pay will have 100 million users each by 2020, up from 59 million and 39 million respectively.    

The firm notes in a white paper issued separately that growth of the OEM pay is largely driven by Apple Watch users and that the space is dominated by large players who can “develop a certain level of partnerships.

Further, the firm notes that as of December 2017, Apple Pay has over 2,000 supporting banks in 24 countries while Samsung Pay comes in at second with the support of over 1,300 banks in 21 countries. Android Pay from Google comes in at third with over 1000 banks supporting them in 17 countries.

“This means that direct partnerships with banks are impractical for smaller smartwatch providers,” says the firm in the white paper. “As a result, these players tend to form partnerships with wallet providers, or launch their own wallet solution, as well as providing the payment facility through the smartwatch itself, rather than partnering with banks.”

Meanwhile, it was also revealed that the combined market share of Apple, Samsung and Google will reach 60 percent in 2023 compared to an estimated 50 percent market share in 2018.

In terms of contactless payment transactions, that number is expected to exceed US$1 trillion in 2018 with the Far East and China along with Europe accounting for 78 percent of global transaction.

However, Juniper Research noted that OEM pay options may struggle to gain traction amongst existing users in established markets as contactless cards are the go-to-option.

“With contactless payments becoming the norm in many global markets, the attendant payment infrastructure is also becoming well established. Indeed, in markets such as Europe, contactless payments are becoming the preferred method of in-store payments”, Nitin Bhas, research author said in the press release.

In the region wise breakdown, it was revealed that the Far East and China will have the maximum mobile contactless payment users. North America, West Europe, Indian Subcontinent followed by Central and East Europe make up the top five regions in 2020.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Bala Yogesh, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.