Three weeks after Apple introduces mobile wallet Apple Pay, some major retailers are seeing a number of consumers ditching their cash and paying using their iPhones.
Apple's mobile wallet App Apple Pay is steadily gaining popularity and has paved the for a new era of "cashless mobile payments," providing a good foundation for other tech companies like Google and Softcard to introduce their own mobile wallets.
"Apple Pay has been a huge tailwind," said Michael Abbott, chief executive of Softcard, a mobile wallet backed by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon.
Mr. Abbott said that because of Apple, many companies now want to support the same technology for paying by phone: near-field communication, which enables devices to exchange information wirelessly over very short distances.
This consistency would help make paying for things with a smartphone less confusing for shoppers.
Whole Foods, high-end grocery chain reported to having processed over 150,000 Apple Pay transactions. McDonald's, with over 14,00 restaurants in the United States said that Apple Pay contributed to half of its tap-to-pay orders.
Another retail giant, Walgreens claimed to have doubled their mobile wallet payments since Apple Pay came out.
There is still a long way to go before Apple Pay truly changes the payment system in the country, but with the increasing number of users trying the product, the future seems bright.
"Quite frankly, a lot of it has to do with the strength of the Apple brand and how much merchants and customers love how easy the experience is," said Denée Carrington, an analyst with Forrester Research.
"I'm not saying it's changing the landscape overnight. But this has never happened with other mobile wallets."
Despite the booming success of Apple Pay, what hinders it now is that it is only available to latest Apple phones, primarily the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which gives only a part of the grip of the market.
