The COVID-19 health crisis significantly transformed the payment world in 2020 and led to some major consequences that include changed consumer shopping behavior, the way businesses now operate and new governments’ regulations. Many countries worldwide witnessed an extensive acceleration of mobile payments. The increase in the number of mobile payments in 2020 manifested in mobile commerce value and penetration rate.
The value of mobile commerce was projected to grow at 8% from 2020 to 2025 globally and account for almost 80% of overall E-Commerce transaction value in 2025. China was expected to be the market leader in the number of proximity mobile payment users, the share was expected to reach 87% of mobile Internet users in 2021, followed by South Korea and the US. The lagging behind countries despite the increase in the number of users over the year included Brazil, Germany and Mexico.
Furthermore, 41% of adults worldwide expected mobile payments to be offered when shopping in-store in 2020, whereas even fewer of them looked forward to making payments with a mobile wallet. Popular mobile payment service providers varied in each country and region in 2020, and among the top ones were iD and Suica Mobile in Japan, Naver Pay and Kakao Pay in South Korea, and Paypal for a significant part of European countries.
Moreover, digital wallet payments globally were triggered by the COVID-19 health crisis in 2020. The number of digital wallet users globally accelerated significantly amid the pandemic in 2020 and is set to continue to grow over the next 5 years, which means that the number of unique digital wallets is predicted to surge by 70% between 2020 and 2025. This is because mobile payments spread fairly quickly around the world and in different markets, leading to the wider use of mobile wallets. When it comes to online wallet adoption, Hong Kong, China and Singapore dominated in 2020, with the rate of 85%, 84% and 71%, respectively, while mature markets as the UK and the US lagged. Furthermore, when it came to offering payment methods, payment decision-makers mostly opted for digital wallets for B2C operations, while for B2B business, the choice fell predominantly on bank wire transfers. QR Code payments that accounted for 47% of digital wallet transactions in 2020 are projected to decline and hold 40% of them in 2025.
