Apple Pay was launched last October and is now available in — brace yourself — approximately 652,000 North American locations, according to an estimate made public yesterday.
Brian Roemmele, arguably one of the more well-versed payments experts in the nation, indicated that he made the estimate based on some difficult legwork, which he declined to make public. He did emphasize, though, that a jumping-off point was the fact that more than 200,000 Apple Pay locations are currently known to be activated. He got to the 652,000 number, because “we found many uncounted” North American locations, he told Bank Innovation.
The number is nothing short of astounding, especially when you couple it with the disclosures Apple made yesterday about its new payments initiative.
Today about 750 banks and credit unions have signed on to bring Apple Pay to their customers, and in just three months after launch, Apple Pay makes up more than $2 out of $3 spent on purchases using contactless payment across the three major U.S. card networks.
This is remarkable progress for Apple in just three short months. And the USA Technologies adoption of Apple Pay yesterday is just the latest “wow” news. That deal alone adds 200,000 Apple Pay acceptance points nationwide, including a wide range of vending machines and parking lot payment kiosks.
About the only thing Apple has not disclosed is the current transaction volume through Apple Pay. No doubt that will come soon, and if the Apple Pay statistics in hand are any indication, it will “wow,” too.
Find out more about alternative payments at Bank Innovation 2015, March 2-3 in Seattle. Learn more here.