Consumer spend via digital wallets across Europe and North America will increase by 40% this year to nearly $790 billion, according to a new study from Juniper Research. The largest growth in 2019 will come from in-store payments, with mobile contactless payments more than doubling across these regions, according to the research group.
Juniper finds that while eRetail spending through wallets would remain the largest contributor to consumer spend, continued migration from cash would see a surge in wallet use at POS [point-of-sale]. This is particularly the case among younger demographics and in the U.S, where a third of iPhones are now used for contactless payments.
Juniper Research’s analysis found that Apple far outstripped its rivals, achieving the largest addressable share of banking consumers in 7-of-10 national markets assessed. In the online space, the study found that wallets, including Apple Pay, Amazon Pay and Visa Checkout, had also significantly expanded their availability at merchant sites, although all lagged well behind PayPal in this regard.
Meanwhile, social payments through wallets will grow strongly both this year and beyond; a trend expected to be accelerated in 2020 by the emergence of Facebook’s Calibra wallet and its attendant Libra cryptocurrency, according to Juniper. However, the research group is less optimistic about prospects for Wearable-pay wallets, arguing that their limited addressable bases and functional constraints meant they would struggle against converged wallets, providing an extensive portfolio of online and offline payment offerings.
“Wearable-pay solutions are still completely dependent on the smartphone and are ultimately limited to a single use case,” according to research author Nick Maynard. “They are, thus, likely to remain, at best, a niche offering.”