Reviewed by Mayer Hyman, Payments Specialist | Reviewed for accuracy July 2026
Key Takeaways
- Apple Pay and Google Pay are no longer optional extras — most consumers carry both, and businesses that accept only one wallet risk friction at checkout.
- Federal Reserve data shows U.S. consumers nearly tripled their monthly mobile-phone payments between 2018 and 2024, and the trend is strongest among younger shoppers.
- Both wallets rely on tokenization, replacing a customer’s real card number with a one-time-use code — a meaningful fraud-reduction advantage over swiped or keyed-in cards.
- Enabling mobile wallets is usually a software update, not a hardware overhaul, if you already accept contactless (NFC) payments.
- Offering multiple wallets — rather than betting on one platform — is the safer strategy for maximizing checkout conversion across your customer base.
Why Mobile Wallets Matter for Merchants Right Now
A few years ago, “digital wallet” meant picking a side: Apple Pay for iPhone shoppers, Google Pay for Android shoppers. That framing is outdated. Today’s consumers routinely carry more than one wallet on their phones, and the businesses winning at checkout are the ones that accept whichever tap-to-pay method a customer prefers — without asking them to think about it.
According to the Federal Reserve’s 2025 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice, U.S. consumers made an average of 11 mobile-phone payments per month in 2024, up from just 4 per month in 2018 — and adults aged 18 to 24 now use their phones for 45% of all the payments they make.1 That is not a niche behavior anymore. It is quickly becoming the default way a growing share of your customers expect to pay.
This guide walks through what Apple Pay and Google Pay actually are, how they compare, why NFC “tap-to-pay” technology underpins both, the security case for accepting them, and what it takes to turn them on at your business.
What Apple Pay and Google Pay Have in Common
Apple Pay and Google Pay are both mobile wallet platforms that let customers store payment cards on a smartphone or smartwatch and pay by holding the device near a contactless-enabled terminal. Functionally, they solve the same problem in nearly identical ways:
- Both use NFC technology. Near Field Communication lets a phone or watch “talk” to a point-of-sale terminal from a few centimeters away — no PIN pad contact, no card swipe.
- Both tokenize card data. Neither wallet transmits a customer’s actual card number during a transaction (more on this below).
- Both support the major card networks. Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover all work with each wallet.
- Both work in-store, in-app, and online — anywhere a contactless reader or a “Pay” button is available at checkout.
The differences are mostly about ecosystem, not payment mechanics: Apple Pay is exclusive to iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch; Google Pay (now part of Google Wallet) runs on Android devices and, for online checkout, in any browser where a customer is signed into their Google account.
Apple Pay: Where Adoption Stands
Apple Pay remains the most widely activated mobile wallet in the U.S. A 2023 analysis from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that roughly 75% of iPhone users had activated Apple Pay, and that U.S. consumers spent $199 billion in-store using the wallet in 2022 — more than double the $91.7 billion spent the year before.2 More recent research from Capital One Shopping puts Apple Pay at roughly 54% of in-store mobile wallet transactions in the U.S. as of 2025, making it the single largest wallet by transaction share.3
Apple Pay works on iPhone 6 and later, iPad Pro, iPad Air, iPad mini, and Apple Watch Series 1 and later, and is accepted at a large majority of U.S. retail locations that support contactless payments — including major national chains, transit systems, and vending machines.
Google Pay: Where Adoption Stands
Google Pay (integrated into Google Wallet) is the default wallet across the Android ecosystem, which commands a substantial share of the global smartphone market. While independently verified, up-to-date U.S. user counts are harder to pin down than Apple’s figures, the more telling data point for merchants is overlap, not competition: research from Capital One Shopping found that 58% of Apple Pay users also use Google Pay, and 49% of Google Pay users also use Apple Pay.3 In other words, most digital-wallet users aren’t loyal to one platform — they use whichever wallet is already open on the device in their hand. For a merchant, that overlap is the real argument for accepting both rather than picking a favorite.
NFC and Tap-to-Pay: The Technology Underneath Both Wallets
Both Apple Pay and Google Pay run on Near Field Communication (NFC), the same short-range wireless standard used by contactless credit and debit cards. When a customer holds their phone or watch near an NFC-enabled terminal, the device and the terminal exchange encrypted payment data over a distance of a few centimeters — fast enough that most transactions complete in under a second.
This matters for merchants because contactless acceptance is now the baseline, not the exception. If your point-of-sale terminal already accepts tap-to-pay credit and debit cards — most terminals shipped in the last several years do — it almost certainly already supports Apple Pay and Google Pay with no additional hardware. The remaining step is usually a software or firmware setting, not a new terminal purchase.
Why Tokenization Makes Mobile Wallets a Security Upgrade
Both platforms are built around device tokenization, a process that replaces a customer’s actual card number with a unique, encrypted digital token tied to that specific device.
- Apple Pay generates a Device Account Number stored securely in the phone’s hardware (the Secure Enclave) and authenticates each transaction with Face ID, Touch ID, or a device passcode. Apple does not store the real card number on its servers or share it with merchants.
- Google Pay similarly creates a virtual card number for each transaction and encrypts the exchange between the device and the payment terminal, so the merchant never receives — or has to store — the customer’s actual account number.
For merchants, this has a direct, practical benefit: because your business never touches the customer’s real card number in a wallet transaction, your exposure in the event of a data breach is reduced, and your PCI compliance scope is often simpler than it would be if you were storing raw card data. Combined with biometric or passcode authentication on the customer’s end, tokenized mobile wallet payments are meaningfully harder to intercept or replay than a magnetic-stripe swipe or a manually keyed card number.
How Merchants Enable Apple Pay and Google Pay
Turning on mobile wallet acceptance typically falls into one of two paths, depending on how you take payments:
- In-person / point-of-sale: If your terminal already accepts contactless (tap) cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay usually work automatically — look for the contactless symbol on your terminal or confirm with your payment processor that wallet acceptance is switched on.
- Online and in-app checkout: Adding an Apple Pay or Google Pay button to your checkout page is typically handled through your payment gateway or e-commerce platform, which manages the tokenization and authorization behind the scenes. Most modern gateways support both wallets as standard checkout options rather than separate integrations.
The practical upshot: if you’ve already modernized your terminal or your online checkout in the past few years, you may be closer to full mobile wallet acceptance than you think. The gap is often a settings toggle with your processor, not a technology overhaul.
The Business Case: Why Offer Both
Treating Apple Pay and Google Pay as a single “accept mobile wallets” decision — rather than choosing one — pays off in a few concrete ways:
- Faster checkout. A tap replaces inserting a chip, signing, or typing a 16-digit card number, shaving seconds off every transaction — which adds up during peak hours.
- Lower cart abandonment online. Letting customers pay with a saved wallet credential removes the friction of manually typing card details on a phone screen, one of the most common points where online shoppers give up.
- Broader reach. Since a large share of consumers carry both an iPhone-based wallet and a Google-based one — and many use both interchangeably — supporting only one wallet means turning away or inconveniencing customers who happen to have the other.
- Reduced fraud exposure. Tokenized transactions lower the risk profile of your payment data compared to storing or transmitting raw card numbers.
None of this requires guessing which wallet will “win.” The data suggests most consumers aren’t choosing sides either — they’re using whatever is fastest in the moment.
Getting Set Up with the Right Payment Partner
The easiest way to accept both wallets — along with traditional card payments — is through a payment gateway built to support contactless and mobile wallet transactions without requiring separate integrations for each. Cartis Payments works with merchants to enable Apple Pay, Google Pay, and other contactless payment methods through a single gateway integration, so you’re not managing multiple vendor relationships just to keep up with how customers want to pay. If you’re not sure whether your current setup already supports mobile wallets, reach out to our team for a quick review.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need new hardware to accept Apple Pay and Google Pay?
In most cases, no. If your point-of-sale terminal already accepts contactless (tap) card payments, it almost certainly supports Apple Pay and Google Pay as well. Confirm with your payment processor that wallet acceptance is enabled in your settings.
Is it safe to accept mobile wallet payments?
Yes — arguably safer than traditional card payments in several respects. Both Apple Pay and Google Pay use device tokenization, meaning your business never receives or stores the customer’s actual card number, which reduces your fraud and data-breach exposure compared to handling raw card data.
What’s the difference between Apple Pay and Google Pay for my business?
From a merchant’s perspective, very little. Both use the same NFC contactless technology, support the same major card networks, and are typically enabled through the same point-of-sale or payment gateway settings. The main difference is which customers can use which wallet, based on their device — which is exactly why accepting both maximizes your reach.
Do customers actually use mobile wallets, or is this overhyped?
Usage has grown substantially. Federal Reserve data shows U.S. consumers nearly tripled their average monthly mobile-phone payments between 2018 and 2024, with the highest usage among adults under 25.1 This isn’t a fringe behavior — it’s an increasingly common default for a large and growing segment of shoppers.
Can I accept mobile wallets for online and in-app purchases, not just in-store?
Yes. Both Apple Pay and Google Pay support online and in-app checkout, typically through a “Pay” button integrated via your payment gateway or e-commerce platform, in addition to in-person tap-to-pay transactions.
Sources:
- Federal Reserve Financial Services, “2025 Findings from the Diary of Consumer Payment Choice,” May 2025.
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Big Tech’s Role in Contactless Payments: Analysis of Mobile Device Operating Systems and Tap-to-Pay Practices,” September 2023.
- Capital One Shopping Research, “Apple Pay Statistics: Users, Market Share & Growth Rate,” updated January 2026.
