Study shows high adoption of Apple Watch payments

Apple Watch owners are rapidly adopting Apple Pay, with 80 per cent using the service through their timepiece, according to a report by independent research platform Wristly.

The survey of almost 1,000 Apple Watch owners in the US and England, the only countries Apple Pay is currently available in, found that adoption of the payment platform on watches was far greater than initial take-up on the iPhone 6.

Key findings of the survey include:

  • Some 78 per cent are using the service on their watch on a weekly basis, while 61 per cent use it occasionally, 14 per cent use it daily and four per cent use it multiple times a day.
  • The vast majority of users (86 per cent) are now actively looking for Apple Pay branding materials when checking out and, when it is available, 81 per cent continue to use it to complete their payment.
  • A small minority of Apple Watch owners (11 per cent) have configured more than four cards in their Apple Pay setup and 69% have set up one or two cards.

Bernard Desarnauts, co-founder of Wristly said: What an incredible achievement in such a short amount of time – yes, 80 per cent of Apple Watch owners who can, have already used Apple Pay. By comparison, the various surveys published in 2015 in the US assess Apple Pay usage level on iPhone 6 at around 15 to 20 per cent.

“For our research with our panel of Apple Watch owners, while the vast majority used Apple Pay first with their iPhone, it is interesting that slightly more than 19 per cent of respondents (or 25 per cent of those who have used Apple Pay) first tried it on their Watch. Our data suggests that Apple Pay on the Watch could eventually reach an adoption rate as high as 95 per cent.”

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