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Wednesday, 12 February 2020

Apple Pay Could Account for 10 Percent of Global Card Transactions by 2025 and Even Rival PayPal

Apple Pay could account for 10 percent of global card transactions by 2025 and pose a serious challenge to rivals like PayPal, according to recent trend data compiled by research firm Bernstein.

Drawing from the data, Quartz reports that ‌Apple Pay‌ currently accounts for about 5 percent of global transactions. If that growth trend continues, it may well become a long-term competitive threat to PayPal – and could even end up competing with Visa and Mastercard if it chose to set up its own payments network much further down the line.

‌Apple Pay‌ probably won't pose a challenge to the card giants anytime soon. While the tech company could, in theory, create its own network that runs outside the card systems, Bernstein argues that Apple still needs the card networks, which are ubiquitous and trusted. Visa and MasterCard, meanwhile, are used to dealing with partners (traditionally large card-issuing banks) with the kind of scale that even ‌Apple Pay‌ could muster.

The same may not be true for other wallets. "‌Apple Pay‌ is indeed one of the long-term competitive threats to PayPal," Bernstein analysts wrote. For now, PayPal has a commanding lead in the world of online checkouts, and also benefits from network effects that have been building up since the turn of the century. But Apple and PayPal could end up competing for the same turf in the coming years.

Apple's advantage over other digital payments includes its pre-installed Wallet app for iPhone and its tight control over the NFC technology contained within the device that can process contactless payments.

However, that tight control could cause headaches for Apple if it is perceived as a way to block competition. Apple argues that its policies are strictly for security purposes, but it has already run into difficulties in Australia, where big banks want access to the iPhone's NFC function for a competitive level playing field.

The company has also faced a backlash in in Germany, where a parliamentary committee recently passed an amendment to an anti-money laundering law that could force Apple to open up the NFC chip in iPhones to competing mobile payment providers.

In November 2019, the European Union's competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager acknowledged that her department has received "many concerns" over ‌Apple Pay‌ and potential anticompetitive issues.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay

This article, "Apple Pay Could Account for 10 Percent of Global Card Transactions by 2025 and Even Rival PayPal" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Tuesday, 11 February 2020

Apple Reportedly Working on 'AirPod Pro Lite' Earphones

Apple is said to be working with supply chain partners in Taiwan on several upcoming products, including a so-called "AirPod Pro Lite," according to DigiTimes. Other products mentioned include next-generation iPad, Apple Watch, and iMac models, all of which will be due for updates in the coming months, although some like the ‌iPad‌ and ‌Apple Watch‌ are unlikely to launch before September.

The AirPod Pro Lite mention comes without further details, buried in a report about Apple looking to ramp up production with partners in Taiwan as it seeks to geographically diversify Apple's supply chain amid the ongoing coronavirus epidemic that has significantly impacted production in China.

Apple, maintaining partnerships with supply chains in both Taiwan and China, may have its Taiwanese partners handle more production of new-generation ‌iPad‌, ‌Apple Watch‌, AirPod Pro Lite and ‌iMac‌ devices to be released later, as the epidemic has raised risks of raw materials supply shortages and shipments disruptions arising from uncertain resumption of normal operations at components suppliers and assembly plants in China, the sources said.

It's unclear exactly what DigiTimes is referring to by "AirPod Pro Lite," as Apple just released the AirPods Pro in October of last year. That followed the launch of second-generation regular AirPods in March 2019, and with only $50 separating the ‌AirPods Pro‌ from the wireless case version of the regular ‌AirPods‌, we're not sure how a "Lite" version of the ‌AirPods Pro‌ would fit into Apple's lineup.

While DigiTimes often has some insight into Apple's product pipeline through the supply chain, the publication is less accurate when it comes to specific details like product naming and timing, so it's possible these could be a third generation of the regular ‌AirPods‌, but we'll have to wait for additional rumors to surface before we have a better picture of what to expect.

Related Roundups: AirPods 2, AirPods Pro

Tag: digitimes.com

Buyer's Guide: AirPods (Neutral), AirPods Pro (Buy Now)

This article, "Apple Reportedly Working on 'AirPod Pro Lite' Earphones" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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