Apple Pay的海外擴張道阻且長

在Apple Pay席卷美國之后的18個月里，這家智能手機巨頭在海外遭遇了技術上的挑戰，面臨著消費者使用率低的問題，還受到了銀行的抵制，這使得他們在全球支付市場只贏得了微小的份額。

最近幾周，蘋果在新加坡的唯一合作伙伴除了美國運通之外又增加了四家銀行，在澳大利亞獲得了澳新銀行集團的支持，在加拿大又兼容了另外五家銀行。截至目前，這項服務可以在六個國家使用，支持的銀行范圍仍然十分有限。

去年，通過Apple Pay產生的交易額為109億美元，大部分來自美國。根據研究公司Timetric的數據，這比率先使用移動支付的小國肯尼亞的年交易額還要少。

而其全球交易量相對中國而言，更是滄海一粟。在中國這個全球最大的移動支付市場，互聯網巨頭阿里巴巴和騰訊占據了統治地位。iResearch的數據顯示，他們的移動端交易額估計高達1萬億美元。

英國、中國和澳大利亞的事實都表明，Apple Pay應該會在蘋果的鐵桿粉絲之間流行起來。但Apple Pay的服務質量，以及用戶對它的興趣卻出現了巨大的差異。

消費者在支付終端前點擊iPhone，就能用Apple Pay來購買咖啡、火車票和其他服務。它還可以用于支持非接觸支付的自動售貨機。

在截至今年3月的6個月時間里，iPhone的銷售額達到了845億美元，占蘋果總收入的三分之二，而Apple Pay的交易額只有它的一小部分。

技術問題

一個月前，Apple Pay登陸了澳大利亞。這里的支付終端由一家中等規模的銀行提供支持，它們時常報錯。

這家銀行的發言人對路透社表示：“本迪戈銀行（Bendigo Bank）在接受Apple Pay的特定商業終端機上，遇到了預料之外的技術問題。”她補充道，由于在推出這項服務時對該行業的了解不夠深入廣泛，所以測試這項新技術的準備期十分有限。

蘋果的副總裁珍妮佛?貝利表示，這種情況是準備不足所致，不具備代表性。她說：“就像其他任何大規模的技術變革一樣，這需要時間。我們希望盡快推出服務，我們盡可能快地推動著這一進程。”

面對著智能手機業務增長緩慢的境況，蘋果想要借助支付市場提高公司產品的吸引力，同時創造更多收入來源。在美國，通過Apple Pay每花費100美元，蘋果就能獲得最高15美分的收入。

盡管蘋果長期以來一直控制著移動產品的供應鏈，但事實證明，控制支付行業的生態體系難度更高。據說，其他國家的銀行要求蘋果降低手續費，這也是Apple Pay在全球進展緩慢，部分原因也在于此。

從2013年至2015年，蘋果投入的研發費用幾乎翻番，達到了80億美元以上。這期間，他們推出了蘋果手表（Apple Watch）和Apple Pay等一系列新產品，還升級了現有的硬件設備和新服務。

阻力

蘋果利用了美國巨大的用戶基數來推廣Apple Pay，但是在澳大利亞、英國和加拿大，當地銀行已經推出了自身的產品，這給蘋果帶來了阻力。

First Annapolis Consulting的分析師約書亞?吉爾伯特表示：“總之，支付市場的體系十分復雜，現有的服務提供商很多，像這樣的革命性改變不太可能迅速實現。”

所以，蘋果正在一點一滴地推動著Apple Pay，慢慢增加支持它的國家和合作伙伴——下一個可能是中國香港——但是，這導致了支付格局的混亂，用戶和零售店員不能肯定哪些產品可以使用，應當如何使用。

例如，據Juniper Research的分析師溫莎?霍爾登所說，去年在英國通過非接觸式卡消費的金額為140億美元。因此，讓人們再去使用手機來完成同樣方便的付款流程，就變得更加困難。

霍爾登表示：“當前在流通的非接觸式卡已經有8,600萬張，英國人已經可以用這些卡進行非接觸支付了。你現在還得勸說他們在Apple Pay上注冊這些卡。”

在澳大利亞，超過60%的銀行卡交易都是通過非接觸式卡完成的。因此，Apple Pay同樣不溫不火。一家大型零售商的發言人表示，他在自己的部門看見“幾乎沒有人采用這種支付方式”。他不愿透露姓名，因為他還沒有得到授意在公開場合談論此事。

迭戈?馬丘卡今年32歲，他使用的是不支持Apple Pay的澳洲聯邦銀行。他有一部iPhone，已經“很大程度上實現了無現金生活”。他表示，Apple Pay很吸引人，但他不會為了這個功能就去換一家銀行。在接受路透社采訪時他表示：“不值得。為了這個點擊支付的功能，我得去做很多事。”

在Apple Pay登陸中國的三個月以后，在線論壇上的用戶抱怨道，即便是在流行的快餐店，使用Apple Pay也不如本土的微信支付那樣無縫。后者是騰訊推出的信息和移動商務應用。

盡管如此，蘋果做出的努力還是讓Apple Pay在一些移動支付行業并未提前占領的市場得到了發展。這讓他們在與對手谷歌的安卓支付和三星支付的競爭中占得了先機。

安卓支付今年3月登陸了美國，上個月登陸了英國。這兩個國家最新款的安卓手機用戶才可以使用該功能。三星支付則進入了三個市場：中國、韓國和美國。

譯者：嚴匡正

More than 18 months after Apple Pay took the United States by storm, the smartphone giant has made only a small dent in the global payments market, snagged by technical challenges, low consumer take-up and resistance from banks.

The service is available in six countries and among a limited range of banks, though in recent weeks Applehas added four banks to its sole Singapore partner American Express; Australia and New Zealand Banking Group in Australia; and Canada’s five big banks.

Apple Pay usage totaled $10.9 billion last year, the vast majority of that in the United States. That is less than the annual volume of transactions in Kenya, a mobile payments pioneer, according to research firm Timetric.

And its global turnover is a drop in the bucket in China, where Internet giants Alibaba and Tencent dominate the world’s biggest mobile payments market – with an estimated $1 trillion worth of mobile transactions last year, according to iResearch data.

Anecdotal evidence from Britain, China and Australia suggests Apple Pay is popular with coreApplefollowers, but the quality of service, and interest in it, varies significantly.

To use Apple Pay, consumers tap their iPhone over payment terminals to buy coffee, train tickets and other services. It can be also used at vending machines that accept contactless payments.

Apple Pay transactions were a fraction of the $84.5 billion in iPhone sales for the six months to March, which accounted for two-thirds of Apple‘s total revenue.

TECH HITCHES

In Australia, where Apple Pay launched a month ago, payment machines supported by one mid-sized bank reported frequent failures.

“Bendigo Bank is experiencing some unforeseen technical issues in accepting Apple Pay payments at selected merchant terminals,” a spokeswoman for the bank told Reuters, adding that a lack of wider industry engagement in launching the service limited the lead time in testing the new technology.

Apple vice president Jennifer Bailey said such experiences were premature and not representative. “Like any set of major technology changes, it takes time,” she said. “We want to move as quickly as possible, we push it as quickly as possible.”

Facing a slowing smartphone business, Apple has taken on the payments market hoping to add ways to make its devices more appealing, and more revenue streams. Apple AAPL -1.45% takes a cut of up to 15 cents in the United States on every $100 spent.

While it has long mastered the supply chain for its mobile devices, the payments ecosystem has proved harder to control, and banks in other countries have reportedly negotiated lower transaction fees, contributing to its slow global roll-out.

Apple nearly doubled its R&D spending to more than $8 billion in 2013-15 as it pushed out a wave of new products including Apple Watch and Apple Pay, as well as upgrades to existing hardware devices and new services.

RESISTANCE

Apple has leveraged its huge U.S. user base to push Pay, but has met resistance in Australia, Britain and Canada where banks are building their own products.

“Payments in general is such a complicated system with so many incumbent providers that revolutionary change like this was not going to happen very quickly,” said Joshua Gilbert, an analyst at First Annapolis Consulting.

The upshot: Apple has rolled out Pay in a dribble, adding countries and partners where it can – Hong Kong is expected to be added next – resulting in an uneven banking landscape with users and retail staff not always sure what will work and how.

In Britain, for example, $14 billion was spent via contactless cards last year, according to Windsor Holden, a Juniper Research analyst. That makes it harder to persuade people to take the extra step on their smartphone for the same checkout convenience.

“You have over 86 million contactless cards in circulation, you have to persuade Britons to register their cards to the (Apple Pay) service when they can already use them to make a contactless payment,” Holden said.

In Australia, where more than 60% of all card transactions are through contactless cards, reception has also been muted. A spokesman for one large retailer said he had seen “very little uptake of the payment option” in his sector. He didn’t want to be named as he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

Diego Machuca, 32, banks with Apple Pay-holdout Commonwealth Bank, has an iPhone and is already “largely cashless.” He says Apple Pay is appealing, but he wouldn’t switch banks just to access that one feature. “Not over that. There’s too much work involved just for tap-and-go,” he told Reuters.

Three months after the China launch, users on online forums complained that using Apple Pay, even at popular fast-food outlets, was not as seamless as local services such as WeChat, Tencent’s messaging and mobile commerce phenomenon.

Nonetheless, Apple‘s approach has spurred development in several markets where the mobile payments industry had previously not taken hold – giving it the jump on rivals Google’s Android Pay and Samsung Pay.

Android Pay only launched in the United States in March and in Britain last month for use on the latest model Android phones. Samsung Pay is available in three markets; China, South Korea and the United States.