Apple Pay expands to Target, Taco Bell, and other US chains and now covers 74 of the top 100 US merchants
Seventy-Four of the Top 100 US Merchants Now Accept Apple Pay — Target, Taco Bell, Hy-Vee supermarkets in the Midwest, Speedway convenience stores and Jack in the Box …
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple Pay's merchant coverage has flipped since its early years: a [[a:829849|2015 survey found fewer than 25% of the top 100 US retailers accepted it, with two-thirds refusing that year]]. The additions of Target, Taco Bell, Hy-Vee, Speedway, and Jack in the Box push acceptance to 74 of the top 100, capping a run that already brought CVS and 7-Eleven on board in 2018 after more than a billion quarterly transactions.
First-order effects
- Target's adoption removes one of the largest remaining holdouts from the top-100 list, putting Apple Pay in front of mass-market shoppers who previously had no contactless option at checkout.
- Convenience and quick-service chains — Speedway, Jack in the Box, Taco Bell — extend Apple Pay into high-frequency, low-ticket purchases where tap-to-pay speed matters most.
Second-order effects
- With [[a:933273|7-Eleven having committed to accepting both Apple Pay and Google Pay across its 10,000+ US stores]], rival wallets now compete for the same terminal footprint, pressuring merchants to support multiple NFC schemes rather than choosing one.
- The remaining ~26 of the top 100 non-acceptors become the visible laggards, facing customer friction as peers normalize contactless at the register.
Third-order effects
- If acceptance keeps climbing toward ubiquity among top merchants, wallet choice shifts from 'is it accepted?' to default payment-card selection inside the wallet — making the phone maker, not the bank, the primary interface for card usage, building on Apple Pay's early reach across 90% of US credit card purchase volume.
The trend: US retail payments are moving from selective NFC adoption by early merchants toward near-universal top-100 acceptance, turning mobile wallets into default checkout infrastructure.