Mobile wallet adoption and usage is growing at a fast pace in the Asia-Pacific region, supported by accelerated consumer shift towards non-cash payment methods, reveals GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
Asian-Pacific markets have been actively promoting mobile wallets, placing them ahead of their Western counterparts. While already popular in countries like India and China, mobile wallet payments are also gaining traction in other APAC markets. GlobalData’s 2023 Financial Services Consumer Survey reveals that even traditionally cash-intensive countries in the region such as the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand, are witnessing a similar trend with rising adoption of mobile wallets.
Shivani Gupta, Senior Banking and Payments Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “While Asian markets have traditionally relied on cash, the adoption of mobile wallet payment methods for in-store payments is growing across many markets in the region, surpassing the adoption levels in the West, such as the US and the UK, which stand at only 46.7% and 45.8%, respectively. This trend is driven by the availability of low-cost smartphones, increasing internet penetration, growing awareness of mobile payments, and the proliferation of mobile wallets and QR code-based payment solutions.”
Mobile wallets are now increasingly becoming ‘mainstream’ payment method, widely used for day-to-day transactions at supermarkets, grocery stores, street vendors, tea stalls, fuel stations, and even inside taxis and auto-rickshaws.
The high adoption of QR code-based payments has been the major driver for mobile wallet adoption in the region. Consumers benefit from the convenience and pricing advantages, such as cashback and discounts, while merchants are attracted to the cost-effectiveness of mobile wallet acceptance. The costs associated with mobile wallet acceptance, including setting up infrastructure (e.g., QR code stickers) and transaction fees, are much lower compared to traditional card-based payment systems.
Within the region, India has higher adoption rate compared to its peers with 90.8% of respondents indicated that they used mobile wallet for payments in last 12 months, according to the survey. This is primarily due to the unified payments interface (UPI), a mobile-based instant payment system in India that allows individuals to make instant payments to merchants through their mobile banking app or mobile wallets such as Google Pay, PhonePe, and Paytm.
While China and India are the early adopters of mobile wallet-based payments, other countries in the region are also following the suit. Indonesia, for instance, has seen a significant increase in mobile wallet adoption and usage, rising from 77% in 2020 to 89.8% in 2023, reaching the second place in the region.
This considerable uptake of mobile wallet payments can be attributed to the widespread usage of Quick Response Code Indonesian Standard (QRIS), a common standard for QR code payments that works across all electronic money apps, electronic wallets, and mobile banking services. QRIS enables customers to use any QR code-based service to make payments at any merchant, thereby bolstering electronic and mobile payments.
Gupta concludes: “The reach of mobile wallet payments is expanding rapidly, thanks to the widespread use of QR code payments, introduction of national wide QR code for interoperability between mobile wallet payments, increasing smartphone penetration and the high level of merchant acceptance. The seamless payment experience offered by mobile wallets has revolutionized the way consumers conduct their day-to-day activities. Subsequently, mobile wallet usage has disrupted the overall consumer payment landscape in the region, leading to a gradual decrease in cash usage.”
