Mobile Wallet Offers Are Blooming
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New mobile-wallet offers are blooming like spring flowers as industry players try to attract more consumers to the fledgling payment method, which represents only a speck of U.S. retail spending.
Verizon consumers who make at least three transactions using Android Pay will receive 2 GB of wireless data under a new reward program. Verizon will award 1 GB of free data after the first transaction. Android Pay launched in 2015, and Google estimates that some 1.5 million U.S. stores accept Android Pay. The Verizon offer expires June 14, and consumers must redeem their free data rewards by July 13.
Meanwhile, consumers using Samsung Pay for three transactions will receive $30 gift cards for one of these retailers: Best Buy, eBay, GameStop or Regal Entertainment. That offer expires May 10 and is good only for current Samsung Pay users, meaning the promotion is targeting existing customers to use the mobile wallet more.
That’s likely because mobile wallets, while a trendy technology, are finding little traction so far among U.S. consumers. Javelin Research, for instance, estimates that one-tenth of 1 percent of retail transactions involve mobile wallets, though the firm predicts that mobile payments will hit $54 billion annually by 2019. Total U.S. retail spending hit about $4.69 trillion in 2015 according to non-adjusted figures from the U.S. Commerce Department.
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