Loup Ventures: 75% of US iPhones now have Apple Pay activated, up from 50% in 2020 and 10% in 2016; Apple says 90% of US retailers now take Apple Pay
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple Pay's US activation curve has been the slow-burn story of mobile payments: Loup Ventures counted just 38M US active users back in early 2018 (its first US estimate), and a later survey put worldwide users at roughly half the iPhone base by September 2020 (507M globally). The issuer side was settled long ago — Apple Pay supported 90% of US credit cards by purchase volume within months of launch (the 2014 card-coverage milestone) — so activation, not bank support, was always the bottleneck.
First-order effects
- With 75% of US iPhones activated and Apple claiming 90% retailer acceptance, holdout merchants lose their last practical excuse: customers who expect tap-to-pay now outnumber those who don't, making NFC terminal gaps a visible service failure at checkout.
Second-order effects
- Rival wallets (Google Pay, Samsung Pay) are pushed into competing for the same activated base rather than fighting for awareness, shifting the battleground to rewards, transit, and in-app checkout where switching costs are lowest.
Third-order effects
- If activation keeps tracking iPhone upgrades rather than marketing spend, the phone itself becomes the default payment credential in the US — concentrating the customer interface for card issuers and merchants in the hands of the device maker, which is precisely the chokepoint regulators scrutinize when they examine NFC access and wallet exclusivity.
The trend: Smartphone wallets are completing their shift from opt-in novelty to default payment layer in the US, with device makers — not banks or card networks — controlling the point of tap.