There are still Christmas leftovers in the refrigerator, but already it looks like the 2015 holiday season will go down as a momentous one for digital payments.
Amazon reported today that nearly 70% of Amazon.com customers shopped using a mobile device this holiday season, while customers shopping on the company’s mobile app “more than doubled.”
MasterCard, meanwhile, said today that it saw ecommerce sales increase 20% this year from the 2014 holiday period.
This is not a total surprise, as 70% of U.S. consumers report doing more research online than before, according to our recent Omnishopper Guide.
And finally, consider Brian Roemmele’s Pay Finder app that tracks Apple Pay locations. Roemmele said that a Christmas Day promotion at Target and Best Buy to encourage activation of Apple Watch “may have doubled [the number of Apple Watch] devices in use,” which is good news for Apple Pay. And Roemmele’s Pay Finder also saw an increase in usage over the past two days of 750%. No doubt that’s over a small base, but still.
No doubt more definitive data will be coming in soon, but regardless of the final numbers, it is safe to say the 2016 holiday season will be an even bigger for digital payments than in 2015. Why? In part, because Alipay, the mobile wallet arm of Ant Financial, Alibaba’s payments spinoff, was already reporting heavier payments traffic outside China, its home market, this holiday season. And Ant Financial knows an opportunity when it sees one. Here’s what the president of its US unit said just recently:
With better logistics and localized payment options now available to make cross-border purchases, we expect this tremendous growth of Chinese consumers to continue throughout the holiday season, particularly as U.S. e-commerce retailers provide more discounts and promotions.
And that will continue into next year’s holiday season, too. In the past year, Alipay has started taking payments for purchases from U.S. merchants like Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue. Doing so makes it easier for Chinese consumers to buy items using their Alipay accounts.
Oh, and Alipay has 400 million registered customers.
Read about the future of mobile payments: Will ‘Star Pay’ Take Over Mobile Payments in 2016?