With Apple and Google, being the most supreme adversaries today, there has never been a more exhilarating time with mobile based payments. Though both companies enjoy a huge market share; however, the recent market trend has shown that each company is perpetually threatening to move into each other’s territory.
By manufacturing Tablets like Google Nexus, Google has gotten involved with gadget manufacturing, a domain where Apple has historically been supreme. In the same way, Apple has come up with an application based on maps, something that was generally linked with Google.
However, the latest strife between these tech giants seems to be with mobile payments. It was in the year 2011, when Google took the first step in the field of mobile payment system. The technology famous by the name “Google Wallet” was not able to catch up with the growing number of merchants and users. It can be said that the slowness was due to fewer number of NFC-equipped retailers initially, which failed to leave any positive impact on the users and vendors.
Meanwhile, in the year 2014, Apple tried to take the opportunity to gain some loyalty by launching its own version of the mobile payments app. It was the time when both combatants were eager to grab any opportunity to gobble up the allies. Google has recently shown its intent by announcing partnerships with a number of merchant platforms like ShopGate, Papa John’s, ChowNow, and more. As for Apple, they also recently tied up with Gamestop, Firehouse Subs, and more.
In order to propagate and make the mobile payments get adopted, both the tech giants are putting their best efforts. However, it has a long way to go. Today, convenience remains the most restricting factor, as more than 60% of the times mobile-devices are not being preferred for in-store purchases.
According to a recent research by Forrester, there is a plenty of scope to grow mobile payment transactions. Moreover, they are expected to touch $142 billion mark by 2019 as compared to $52 billion today.
Irrespective of the winner in this evenly contested area, both Google and Apple have the capital to invest and hold the supremacy in go-to mobile payments. However, it would be interesting to see what unfolds.
