A worldwide overview of digital wallet use, for in person and online shopping
Digital wallets or mobile wallets are an increasingly popular tool with benefits for both consumers and businesses – they speed up transactions both online and in person. Cross-border retailer Ubuy has put together new research on digital wallet usage around the world, to investigate which platforms are the most popular and which countries use them the most. They also provide some tips for consumers on how to use them safely.
In person shopping
Ubuy’s report looked into the countries where people were most likely to have used a digital wallet at an in person retailer, restaurant or other venue. These can be installed as apps on your phone or smart watch. The country where most people had used a digital wallet for an in person payment most was Kenya, with 80% of people having done so in the past year. 72% of people in China had paid using a mobile wallet in the past year, as had 65% of people in Thailand.
Country | Percentage of consumers using mobile wallets for in person shopping |
Kenya | 80% |
China | 72% |
Thailand | 65% |
India | 63% |
Vietnam | 61% |
Hong Kong | 58% |
Nigeria | 55% |
Indonesia | 53% |
Malaysia | 52% |
Singapore | 52% |
Saudi Arabia | 49% |
Argentina | 46% |
Denmark | 45% |
Peru | 44% |
Taiwan | 44% |
Colombia | 43% |
United Arab Emirates | 41% |
Czechia | 39% |
Philippines | 39% |
Portugal | 39% |
Ireland | 39% |
Australia | 37% |
Japan | 36% |
New Zealand | 34% |
Poland | 34% |
United Kingdom | 33% |
South Korea | 33% |
Romania | 32% |
Brazil | 32% |
Israel | 32% |
Hungary | 31% |
Netherlands | 30% |
Sweden | 30% |
Switzerland | 30% |
Lithuania | 29% |
Finland | 27% |
South Africa | 26% |
Pakistan | 26% |
Greece | 26% |
United States | 25% |
Spain | 25% |
Turkey | 25% |
Chile | 24% |
Norway | 23% |
Belgium | 22% |
Egypt | 22% |
Canada | 21% |
Mexico | 19% |
Germany | 19% |
Serbia | 19% |
Austria | 16% |
Italy | 16% |
France | 15% |
Dominican Republic | 14% |
Morocco | 11% |
The world’s most popular digital wallets
The research also looked into which digital wallets were available to use in different countries around the world. Ubuy found that the most popular was Apple Pay which is available in 45 countries. PayPal is available in 41 countries and the third most commonly used digital wallet around the world is AliPay, used in 39 countries.
The countries with the highest number of different digital wallets available are Hong Kong, Malaysia and the USA, which all have 9 providers. France, Italy, Portugal and Spain all have 8 digital wallet providers. The most common number of digital wallet providers for a country to have was 7, which 14 different countries all have, including the UK.
Faizan Khan at Ubuy comments: “Digital wallets are a growing part of the e-commerce industry, especially for retailers who sell to customers overseas. This technology makes it possible to build a relationship with customers abroad and make products available to them that they might not have been able to get before.
“Some digital wallet providers are more popular in certain countries, such as AliPay which has a bigger presence in its home country of China – but as our research shows it is now used around the world. While big providers like AliPay and Google Pay might seem to corner the market, businesses should bear in mind that the more types of payment methods they are able to accept, the easier they make it for customers to shop with them.”
