Apple and Huawei push into Europe after filings
(BI Intelligence)
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Two new filings in Europe by Huawei and Apple could mean the region, which has already been shown to embrace contactless payments, will soon get more mobile payment capabilities.
Huawei, a Chinese mobile phone manufacturer, appears to be working on bringing its mobile wallet, Huawei Pay, to Europe after recently filing a trademark. Currently, Huawei Pay is only available in China, where it was launched last year to give phone owners the ability to pay in-store via their devices.
However, the firm is clearly eyeing global expansion of its service, which makes sense in a region where it has a growing smartphone market share. The company more than doubled its smartphone market share to 12% in Europe during the first three quarters of 2016, and is a top two smartphone seller in six countries, including Spain and Italy, according to Forbes.
Apple also declared a similar trademark filing in Europe for its peer-to-peer (P2P) service, Apple Pay Cash, which was originally announced at Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC). The new service will be available in the US with the introduction of Apple's iOS 11, the newest version of its mobile operating system. With this filing, European markets where Apple Pay is used will also likely get this new mobile wallet capability — Apple Pay is already available in the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland.
Although both Huawei and Apple are introducing digital offerings to a market that has embraced alternative forms of payments, the latter is likely to be more successful.
Tap-and-go transactions have grown at a massive rate over the last year. In Europe, there were 3 billion contactless transactions over the last 12 months, which is nearly triple that of the previous year, according to a Visa Europe study released in May. And of all in-store Visa processed payments in Europe, contactless payments now account for 20% of transactions, which is a significant increase from the 1.7% in 2013. This growth gives mobile wallets the opportunity to leverage the tap-to-pay habits being built by consumers in order to get them to adopt their own offerings.
However, as a result of consumers already adopting tap-to-pay cards, mobile wallets can't just market the convenience of the technology, they need to offer added features. The time saved from tapping your phone at the point-of-sale to complete a transaction is not enough of an incentive to switch from a contactless card to a phone, as they are comparable. Given this fact, it may prove difficult for Huawei Pay to gain significant traction in the European market. Apple, however, could boost adoption of its service because it's not just offering an in-store payment option; it's also giving users the new capability of sending P2P payments.
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