Apple Pay’s encouraging early adoption isn’t just a boon for Apple — it seems that it might be a boon for Google and its Google Wallet mobile payment platform as well. Ars Technica’s sources say that Google Wallet “weekly transactions have increased by 50 percent, and in the recent couple of months, new users have nearly doubled compared to the previous month.” Ars says that while it’s not clear that Apple Pay’s launch is responsible for this recent surge, the media attention and positive reviews that it’s received certainly haven’t hurt.
RELATED: Apple Pay vs. Google Wallet: A detailed comparison
In just its first week of availability, Apple Pay activated more than 1 million credit cards, which easily made it the most widely adopted mobile payments service in the world. At the same time, both Apple Pay and Google Wallet received more press after major retailers such as CVS and Rite Aid decided to shut down their stores’ NFC sensors and stop accepting payments from both services. This led to rare unity from both iPhone fans and diehard Android fans, who are some of the most loyal fans in tech.
At any rate, it will be interesting to watch if this recent uptick in use for Google Wallet is a sustained trend or if it’s just a one-time blip.
