Mobile Wallets Change Names To Up Adoption, Usage

What’s in a name? Some of the world’s largest mobile wallet players have changed course in an effort to change their luck with consumers.

At Innovation Project 2017, PYMNTS.com CEO Karen Webster shared the latest mobile wallet adoption statistics for major brands Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay and Walmart Pay.

The phrase “low and slow” is an apt description for the three brands that have been in the market for a while: Apple, Android and Samsung Pay. Apple Pay has seen a slight decrease in adoption, while adoption of the other three mobile wallets has remained relatively flat. Usage stats haven’t fared much better.

While signs point to the fact that security concerns (though less of an issue recently) and growing happiness with current payment methods are likely culprits for the lukewarm adoption stats, these four mobile wallet players are sure it’s all about the name.

And they are looking inward to another mobile wallet that has been around for a long time and has cracked the mobile wallet code online.

Founded in 1998, PayPal was one of the first major online payment providers. The company has a long and storied history of facilitating P2P and eCommerce transactions on the web and, with the smartphone boom, on mobile devices.

Taking a page from the PayPal playbook, starting today, three of the four major brands have rebranded and will now be known as “Pay Apple,” “Pay Android” and “Pay Samsung,” respectively.

While the companies couldn’t be reached for comment, an anonymous source told PYMNTS, “Putting ‘Pay’ as the first name seems to work well, so why not?”

Industry insiders also told PYMNTS that online retail giants Amazon and Alibaba are both considering a name change to their payments services — Pay Amazon and Pay Ali(baba).

In both cases, these decisions are merely rumors. The move to rename Amazon Pay, for example, may be redundant since more customers than ever are already more than happy to pay Amazon on a very regular basis.

This story was written as part of PYMNTS Annual April Fool’s edition and all in the spirit of good fun. Any resemblance to real news is purely coincidental. We hope you enjoyed it.