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Tim Cook: Apple Pay received over 1 million activations in first 72 hours, bigger than all contactless competitors combined

Apple Pay iOS 8.1

Apple chief executive Tim Cook confirmed just moments ago in a live interview at The Wall Street Journal: Digital conference that Apple Pay received over 1 million activations in the first 72 hours following its launch last week. Cook added that the mobile payments platform is bigger than all contactless competitors combined, presumably including rival service Google Wallet.

Cook also humorously poked fun at Google and other competitors by claiming that it is not “Big Brother” in terms of collecting personal information, adding that “we’ll leave that to others.” The security of Apple Pay has been a major selling point of the service for Apple, with the mobile payments platform closely integrated with Touch ID and the Apple A8 chip to ensure that all contactless transactions are safe and secure.

Apple previously commented that its Apple Pay launch in the United States has been overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic, despite the lack of support from some high-profile retailers such as Walmart and CVS and Rite Aid. The NFC-based service is supported at over 220,000 stores in the United States, with more partners on the horizon, and could launch in other countries internationally as soon as next year.

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Comments

  1. iphone6splus - 9 years ago

    If $1 was spent on each card, they made $1,500, 0.15%.

    • Joe Rossignol - 9 years ago

      $150,000 if every customer spent only $1.

    • Chris Sanders - 9 years ago

      15k not 1.5k or 150k

      • Chris Sanders - 9 years ago

        Actuallu it is $1.5k

      • 1,000,000 x .0015 = 1,500. That is the correct math lol

        Apple is counting on hundreds of billions of dollars in order for this thing to be profitable. I think that they will be into the trillions within a decade. Their cut of $1 trillion would be $1.5 billion, hardly chump change.

  2. Chris Sanders - 9 years ago

    Thats pretty amazing considering Walmart Rite Aid and CVS blocked ApplePay

    • Torrey Huerta - 9 years ago

      Walmart and the others blocking Apple Pay have nothing to do with the 1 million activations. The activations are just people setting up a card on their phone. This is pretty big news — it shows that people WANT this to work. Hopefully retailers will see this and get on board or get left behind.

      • spiralynth - 9 years ago

        It also shows that there are less than 1 million herb-the-turds in this country (probably less than 10% of that) … you know, those lying, low-life clown-trolls who go around claiming they’ve been using NFC for “years”.

        Yawn.

  3. Taste_of_Apple - 9 years ago

    Impressive.

  4. When people stop shopping at Retailers that don’t accept ApplePay then those Retailers will start accepting ApplePay.

  5. al0963 - 9 years ago

    Whaaaaat, take that Google Wallet, and Android users saying “We had Google Wallet for years” but it never took off, Apple went to the source which is banks and merchants.

  6. Ilko Sarafski - 9 years ago

    Now the contactless payments are going to explode. By 2020 less than 10% of U.S. citizens will use their cash. Likewise it is in Sweden right now. :) Tons of people will upgrade from their 4/4s and 5 in next two years, which means that by 2017-2018 90% of Apple users will have the ability to pay cashless. And by then probably 75%+ of retailers will accept Apple Pay. So yeah, U.S., get ready to burn the cash away.
    On the other hand, in Eastern Europe we’ll be using cash at least in the next 10-15 years or so… :D

    • kplayaja - 9 years ago

      Going completely cash free is not always a good thing.

  7. 89p13 - 9 years ago

    I never trusted Google with my data, with all the “data collection and aggrandizing” that they say they do so when I started to read about how Apple was going to do it “better” and not do all the data harvesting that Google does – I waited to see if Apple could pull it off. And it looks like they were able to offer me a more convenient way to pay – and still keep my data between me and the bank, while protecting my money from hackers (CurrentC – what a phail).

    I was one of those 1 million activations and I cannot believe how easy Apple made it enter my data: Just take a picture of the card, agree to the terms of service and it was done.

    Smooth move, Apple!

  8. Sandy - 9 years ago

    Can’t wait for Apple Watch so I can use Apple Pay! So much more secure than regular credit cards.

  9. alistmarketing - 9 years ago

    Apple Pay is going to force the entire restaurant industry to accept smart phone contactless payments. When every major retailer jumps on board customers will just demand it everywhere.
    It’s finally time.

  10. Eben Van Ellewee - 9 years ago

    Not sure WTF Tim Cook is talking about here…. for example, only in Australia, Paywave has more than 28 million TRANSACTIONS a month. What is referring to? The US? A US state? The globe? Solar System? Sounds like marketing by obfuscation to me again…..

  11. Doubtful.
    Generally when Android users buy apps, they do so in Google Play, paying with…Google Wallet. (Direct carrier payments are possible for users without a credit card.)
    The vast majority of them are not using contactless payment, however. But, Google Wallet’s Android app for contactless payment has > 20 million downloads.

  12. kplayaja - 9 years ago

    “But Android phones had this 2 years ago.” s/