Point-of-Sale Suppliers See Massive Increase in Retailer Interest Following Apple Pay Launch

A new report by The Wall Street Journal looks at the early performance of Apple's new electronic payments service, Apple Pay, finding strong signs of momentum behind the service. One of the key signs of interest in mobile payments comes from point-of-sales system suppliers seeing drastic increases in retailer interest following the launch of Apple Pay last October.

chase_bleachers_apple_pay_ad
Harbortouch has offered free wireless readers to its retailer clients since 2012, and in the month following the Apple Pay launch 68 percent of client orders asked for the readers supporting wireless payments. As of August of 2013, only 22 percent of its clients had installed such readers in their stores.

“It’s like night and day,” said Brendan Lauber, Harbortouch’s chief technology officer. “Now, merchants are actively coming to us and asking how to support this.”

The Wall Street Journal piece also covers the general surge in public acceptance for the service, remarking on recent stories that Apple Pay now supports cards representing about 90 percent of the credit card purchase volume in the United States, and that Apple's upcoming financial reports for the latest quarter may provide more details.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay

Popular Stories

iOS 18

Apple Expected to Release iOS 18.3 Next Week With These New Features

Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones. Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3. Notification Summary Changes Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries Apple Intelligence...
iOS 18

5 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.3

Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes. While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...
Generic iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Beta Coming Soon With These New Features for Your iPhone

Friday January 24, 2025 8:16 am PST by
iOS 18.3 is expected to be widely released next week, and that means the first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner. Apple has previously implied that iOS 18.4 will be released in April, as that is when it promised to make Apple Intelligence available in even more languages. Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far. Apple Intelligence for Siri Siri ...
Apple Pay Walmart Feature

Walmart Stands Firm on Why It Doesn't Accept Apple Pay in the U.S.

Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today. A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
apple tv 4k new orange

New Apple TV Launching This Year With These New Features

Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device. The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
iOS 18

Here Are Apple's Full Release Notes for iOS 18.3

Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes. The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Horizontal Single Feature

Kuo: iPhone 17 Models Won't Have Smaller Dynamic Island

Friday January 24, 2025 9:09 am PST by
The upcoming iPhone 17 models that Apple plans to release this year will not feature a smaller Dynamic Island, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today. On social media, he said that he is expecting the size of the Dynamic Island to remain "largely unchanged" across the iPhone 17 lineup. His statement is contrary to prior rumors that we've heard about planned changes for the iPhone 17 models. ...
iPhone 16 Apple Store Levels

Gurman: Apple Stores Receiving 'Merchandise' Updates Next Week

Saturday January 25, 2025 5:07 pm PST by
Apple's retail stores will be rolling out "merchandise/floor marketing updates" next week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman did not explicitly say if the store updates are related to any upcoming product announcements, but he did mention that next week is around the time that Apple rolls out its annual Black Unity watch band for the Apple Watch. In each of the past four years, ...
apple power beats pro 2

Apple's First Product Announcement of 2025 is Imminent

Thursday January 23, 2025 2:48 pm PST by
It's also time for Apple's first product announcement of the year. Last year, Apple said it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and the wireless earbuds are expected to launch very soon. Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code In his Power On newsletter last weekend, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the...

Top Rated Comments

Nicky G Avatar
131 months ago
Love using Apple Pay (woot Whole Foods!) and can't wait for CurrentC to utterly fall apart so those retailers who have gone out of their way to block wireless payments at terminals that do technically accept them can move on and support Apple Pay already!
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Robert.Walter Avatar
131 months ago
This would be a good use of ibeacons; they could announce to user that apple pay was accepted in store.

I just wish some of the laggards like costco and Kroger would add apple pay functionality to their pos systems.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
avanpelt Avatar
131 months ago
Apple Pay is a great idea, but will never dominate the market since they don't have the majority marketshare worldwide.

True, but Android does have majority market share worldwide and many Android handsets have supported NFC payments for years via Google Wallet. I don't care what NFC-compatible service customers are using on their devices (and retailers shouldn't care, either).

The retailers just need to buy NFC-capable POS units and deploy them with the NFC functionality turned on. Apple Pay is the best thing that could've happened for Google Wallet in terms of helping bring NFC payments more into the mainstream.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nagromme Avatar
131 months ago
Maybe Apple should give away nice, distinctive free sticky-badges that say "Apple Pay is accepted where NFC is available," and show the NFC logo. It would let stores claim ApplePay support AND educate people on how to recognize other ApplePay-ready locations, that may not even realize their system supports it.

(http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/973837)
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
extricated Avatar
131 months ago
I'm convinced that Apple Pay is one of the best moves Apple has made in awhile. As more people phase out their old iPhones (me included), this will continue to grow by leaps and bounds. Not to mention the upcoming Apple Watch - which will put this tech on the wrists of ... well, who knows how many?
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Karma*Police Avatar
131 months ago
After my Amex got hacked I now use Apple Pay whenever it's available and often seek out merchants that support Apple Pay.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)