Do Consumers Like Smart Watches Enough To Pay With Them? (Nope)

Mobile payments are expected to see a tick from smartwatches, but a report released Tuesday (Oct. 14) says not all smartwatch consumers are likely to use the device to actually make a purchase.

The convenience of taking out a smartphone to make a purchase hasn’t been enough to drive consumers, the report says, and the trend may not grow substantially with smartwatches across all markets. Some industry experts suggest consumers will be quick to adapt with smartwatches for making payments, one report suggests otherwise.

“A new report from GfK found that only 35 percent of respondents to a recent survey that was conducted in five countries are interested is smartwatch payments,” Mobile Commerce Daily reported.

“Consumers seem to be very open towards the Internet of things and the security potential that smartwatches could bring them,” Anselme Laubier, technology expert at GfK told Mobile Commerce Daily.

This interest extends to using smartwatches as an ID card or for mobile payment. The concept of using a smartwatch for mobile payments, however, seems to be more popular in the U.S. market than Europe.  Stronger interest (65 percent) exists in China.

“Using a smartwatch as ID card or for mobile payment could be an option for 40 percent of the US consumers we interviewed,” Laubier reported.

Concepts like using the smartwatch for transportation tickets or security key to computer or online account were other topics discussed. The data of popularity of the payment technology varies, depending who you ask.

“The results also show differences by gender and age group, with men more open than women to the idea of storing healthcare data on a smartwatch while interest is higher in older age groups,” the report shows.

Still, questions about privacy and protecting data when using a smartwatch for payments is still a top concern.

“A smartwatch can track even more personal and more sensitive information than a smartphone, so marketers need to be careful what potential marketing application they want to develop” Laubier said.