A study has found the mobile contactless payment market is expected to grow by 24% in 2021 to around $2.489trn.
According to ComprarAcciones.com, demand for mobile contactless payment options has ballooned in recent years, with the rapid shift to digital payments due to the Covid-19 pandemic fuelling further expansion. The study found that the market has grown 107% since 2019 – when it was worth $1.2trn.
The contactless payment market crossed the $2trn landmark in 2020 and is expected to increase by around another $500m in 2021 according to research data analysed by the study authors.
To put the level of growth into perspective, the market was previously worth $755.6bn in 2018. The following year, value climbed 90% to $1.198trn. Between 2021 and 2023, the contactless payments industry is expected to grow 40% to $3.516trn, before reaching a valuation of $4.6trn by 2025.
Transaction value per user is also expected to soar in the coming years. Between 2019 and 2021, value grew 25% to reach $1,670. By 2023, this will have grown a further 22% to $2,051.
Meanwhile, user growth has also witnessed tremendous uptake over the last two years. In 2019, 901.2m users used contactless payments – by 2020 this was 1.34bn and is expected to rise a further 11% to 1.49bn by the end of this year. While the growth rate is anticipated to slow, by 2025 is expected to reach 1.89bn in user uptake.
China leads the way
The region leading the way in the contactless payments market is Asia Pacific, with China currently dominating the continental market. According to the study, China’s dominance is due to existing market conditions that favoured growth in mobile wallet popularity.
The study also found China’s mobile payment transaction value is forecast to hit $1.3trn this year. By 2023, the country has been estimated to account for over 50% of global mobile wallet payments.
Trailing China considerably in second place is the US, whose transaction value is expected to reach $465.1bn in 2021 – only around a third of the China value. The US market is expected to see growth of 49% to $698bn by 2023.
The UK is the third biggest contactless payments market, with a transaction value for this year expected to hit $98.5bn – totalling a 195% surge in growth since 2019. This is expected to grow a further 60% between 2021 and 2023, reaching $157.8bn.
Further growth
Between 2021 and 2025, the number of mobile wallet users is expected to grow by 6.5m a year. In addition, contactless mobile payment users accounted for a 40.1% share of all smartphone users – with this figure expected to hike to 43.2% in 2021 and 50.1% by 2025.
The average spend per user in the US is also substantially higher than the global average. Last year, every mobile wallet user spent on average $1,973, marking an increase of 10.1% year-on-year.
However, spend is anticipated to raise 23.6% this year, with the average subsequently climbing to $2,439. By 2025, this figure will have climbed to $4,064.
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