Speaking during the Code Commerce conference in San Francisco (via The Verge), Apple Pay’s head Jennifer Bailey revealed that two years after its launch, 35% of merchants in the US now accept the mobile payments solution. This is up from 4% back when it first started. This also translates to roughly 4 million locations.
Bailey also revealed that Apple is looking to target bigger retailers next year, such as GAP, to help boost its growth. So far there has been some resistance when it comes to adopting Apple Pay. For example Walmart has decided not to use Apple Pay in favor of its own service, Walmart Pay, which basically means there is a huge chunk of the US market that Apple is missing out on.
Apple has also been slowly expanding to other countries around the world. However like we said, there is some resistance, particularly in Australia where some of the major banks aren’t too thrilled with the fees, leaving only one major bank in the country where the platform is supported.