Consumers aren’t using digital wallets’ non-payment features

By the numbers: Most US consumers aren’t using digital wallets for anything beyond financial services, PYMNTS Intelligence and Google Wallet survey fielded in January.

• Only 4.1% of consumers used them for travel or transportation purposes like hotel keys, boarding passes, and public transport. This share goes up to 11.7% for Apple Wallet users and 9.2% for Google Wallet users.
• Only 3.4% used them for event tickets like movie or concert tickets. Apple Wallet’s share was again far higher, at 10.3%, versus 4.7% of Google Wallet users.
• And 3.1% used a digital wallet for identification purposes like a driver's license, library card, or other membership card. This share was 7.9% for Apple Wallet users and 8.6% for Google Wallet users.

Why it matters: While the share of consumers using wallets for non-payments services is much higher among Apple Wallet and Google Wallet users, it’s still minimal considering the investments both wallets have made in expanding their non-payment services.

• In August, Google Wallet rolled out the “Everything Else” feature, enabling users to easily digitize their documents just by taking a picture of them within Google’s app. It works for drivers’ licenses, passports, health insurance cards, library cards, and vehicle registrations.
• That same month, Apple Wallet rolled out digital state IDs in California, the sixth state to support the feature.

Our take: Non–payment services adoption may be higher now than in January given these more recent launches. But while wallet providers have dreams of replacing consumers’ physical wallets, getting consumers to do that may take longer than they hope.

To help boost adoption of these non-payment services, the providers need to raise awareness of these features and cross-promote them in their wallets.

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