Mobile Payment Usage Around the World

This week’s chart series has a mobile payments focus, beginning today by exploring uptake of these services around the world, and across generations.

Globally, the number of internet users using mobile payment services each month continues on an upward trend, with this figure moving 10 percentage points since Q1 2016, now at 34% in Q4 2017. If we take a regional approach to the data, the current status of the industry landscape becomes immediately clear.

APAC is way ahead of the other regions here at 39%, while Europe lags much further behind at 23%. Europe’s position here will, at least in part, be influenced by the continued fundamental position that cash, credit and debit cards have in the financial infrastructures within European markets. Although, we should note that industry growth in the last year has primarily come from the Western regions.

As might be expected, it’s younger internet users who emerge as the most enthusiastic about paying with their smartphones, with around 4 in 10 Millennials doing so in the last month. These services are by no means reserved for the more digitally savvy though, as Gen X follows Millennials closely, and a fifth of Baby Boomers are definitely warming to these alternative payment options.