Hey, Apple. It's time for Apple Pay in Australia

Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) saw the introduction of a number of smaller software updates and the launch of Apple Music.
As part of the iOS update, Apple revealed that Apple Pay would soon be launching in the UK. There was no other talk around when they expect to launch anywhere else.

Apple proved though that they aren’t shunning Australia completely. Their new Apple News app will be available first only in the UK, US and Australia. So why not get us in the same group for Apple Pay?

I think its about time they launched in Australia. Why? Well, let’s take a look.

Higher iOS market share

Apple’s iOS operating system, according to Kantar Worldpanel, has a 36% market share as of April. This is up 6% from that time last year, thanks to the iPhone 6 launch. Whilst that still doesn’t make it the winner, it does show it is climbing.

But that’s not all, when compared against the UK’s 35% marketshare, which is actually a drop from last year, or the US’s 33%, it makes you wonder why they aren’t jumping on it.

A nation of first adopters

Australia is known to be one of the fastest adopters of technology in the world. It was true when DVD launched, when smartphones launched and when cloud technology launched. We are a perfect testing field for the new and shiny.

Roy Morgan estimates as much as 49% of Australian’s are first adopters.

McCrindle found that up to 90% of Australia was online in some way, ahead of the US at 78% and the UK at 84%. They also found back in 2012, that mobile communication had taken over from fixed line.

A study by We Are Social found Australia to be towards the top with social network penetration at 44%, on par with the UK.
They also found our smart phone penetration rate to be at 65% over the UK’s 62% and we have a higher number of people buying products from their phone with 41% over 39%. The US smartphone penetration sits at 56%.

Back in 2013, Business Spectator noted that 35% of Australian’s had used some type of wearable tech over the US and UK’s 18%.

Infrastructure already in place

The infrastructure required by Apple Pay- those tap-and-go terminals adorned in PayWave and PayPass logos- are already in most places Apple Pay will be used.

At about the same time last year, Australia made 58 million contactless payments over the UK’s 46 million. Visa’s head of emerging products has stated that Australia leads the world in contactless payments, and that they would work with Apple to get Apple Pay off the ground in Australia.

The UK also limits their payments to just £20 (about the same as the US’s $25), whereas Australia is happy to let it go to $100.

There are upwards of 850,000 terminals across Australia versus the UK’s 127,000.

[](http://res.cloudinary.com/dtnkltpb0/image/upload/v1472611034/commbanksamsung3_f5zc0q.jpg)The Commonwealth Bank app allows NFC payments

**Few competitors**

There have been few competitors in the Australian market. It seems Apple isn’t the only company shunning us. Google Wallet didn’t allow Australian’s to use it years ago and some banks have only recently enabled their apps to work as contactless terminals, but often limited to certain phone models or not even via the phones NFC chip.

Visa and MasterCard are making strides towards improving contactless payments and Samsung has finally enabled their card settings in Australia on the Galaxy S6, and the Commonwealth Bank have relinquished the need for NFC cards to be sent out, instead opting for the inbuilt NFC chips.

All of this is still in its extreme infancy and waiting for someone to come along and push it forward.

The numbers just add up for Australia to be next.

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