The number of merchants deploying soft POS solutions will surpass 34.5 million globally by 2027, rising from six million in 2022.
The finding comes from Juniper Research’s new report, ‘POS Terminals: Key Opportunities, Competitor Leaderboards & Market Forecasts 2022-2027.’
It ties the growth of the soft POS with the entrance of Apple into the space, with iOS users able to access an affordable mobile point-of-sale solution.
A soft POS solution enables NFC enabled smartphones or tablets to accept contactless payments, without additional hardware.
Juniper claims that Apple’s decision to enable third-parties to develop soft POS solutions leveraging iOS NFC capabilities will result in an influx of iOS-specific services. It also predicts Apple’s entry will provide 1.2 billion iOS users with soft POS capabilities, unlocking an untapped market.
It states that soft POS vendors should leverage Apple’s payment ecosystem to develop innovative solutions, such as integrated QR payment acceptance.
Furthermore, Juniper’s report claims soft POS adoption will also be driven by the increasing use of contactless payments, with volumes set to rise from 195 billion to 408 billion by 2027. As a result, consumers will expect contactless payments as a standard, forcing merchants to use contactless-capable solutions.
This will see more move to soft POS due to the available cost savings by not needing additional hardware.
Juniper recently released another report. It claimed that the number of buy now, pay later users is set to surpass 900 million by 2027, rising from 360 million in 2022. It attributes this rise to the anticipated economic downturn, which will increase the demand for low-cost credit solutions.
Another report from the company claims there will be 5.2 billion digital wallet users by 2026, rising from 2.4 billion in 2022. This rise is being caused by the growing adoption of ‘superapps’ that let users complete a variety of their daily activities through a single app.
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