New research from Roy Morgan Research has found that with Apple Pay launching in Australia on American Express the potential turnover is more than $1 billion a month.Roy Morgan has found that Amex cardholders have the highest ownership of iPhones compared to MasterCard, Visa and all the major banks and have the highest spend on credit cards overall.
“With 221,000 holders of Amex-issued credit cards owning an iPhone and spending an average of $4,560 across all their credit cards each month, the potential turnover on Apple Pay is more than $1 billion per month,” Roy Morgan states.
Roy Morgan found that 52 per cent of Amex credit card holders (non-bank issued) have an iPhone, compared with MasterCard holders (36 per cent) and Visa (35 per cent).
ING Direct leads the banks with 47 per cent iPhone ownership, with Westpac and ANZ on 36 per cent, followed by NAB (35 per cent) and CBA (34 per cent).
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Amex card-holders are nearly twice as likely as other card-holders to have made a purchase with a mobile phone, Roy Morgan states, making them likely candidates to take up Apple Pay.
Over 80,000 Amex card-holders currently own an iPhone 6, capable of accessing Apple Pay, with this “likely to grow rapidly, given that another 48,000 Amex card-holders intend to buy or upgrade a mobile phone within the next 12 months”.
Amex card-holders (non-bank issued) spend an average of $4,560 per month on cards overall, ahead of Mastercard ($2,870) and Visa ($2,940), Roy Morgan figures show, with the challenge for Amex being to capture more of their cardholders’ spend, currently amounting to $1,980 per month (around 43 per cent of their total card spend).
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“There is an obvious synergy between the type of high-end, affluent customer who holds an Amex card and Apple’s customers, who tend to be early adopters of the latest technology,” Norman Morris, Roy Morgan Research industry communications director, commented.
“This is evident in the fact that Amex-issued card-holders have the highest iPhone ownership of all the major banks’ customers and other cardholders.
“Another positive factor for the potential success of Apple Pay is that Amex card-holders are already more familiar than the general population with using their phone to make purchases, doing so at twice the overall population level.”
Morris noted that for Amex card-holders “the full potential of business likely to be conducted on Apple Pay will depend on achieving a greater share of their spend”.
“At present, Amex is only gaining 43 per cent of their customers’ card spend, leaving a big opportunity for growth from existing card-holders,” he commented. “It will also be interesting to see how many Amex customers with their cards issued by a bank might drop their cards for one that can use Apple Pay.”
