Mobile payments apps are used by more than two billion people globally, with millions more coming online each year.
In India, South-east Asia and South America, the younger generation skipped the usual process of owning a credit or debit card, in favour of using mobile apps.
Adoption of mobile payments is weakest in developed nations, such as Germany and France, which are finding it hard to ditch cash and cards. Even in the United States, adoption rates trail developing nations by a considerable percentage, although Nordic countries have seen a rapid adoption of mobile payments over the past decade.
Outside of China and India, most mobile payment solutions mimic regular card readers, which use near-field communication (NFC) to send digital payments to card readers. Apple Pay and Google Pay are the two most common mobile payment services accepted by merchants.
Apps such as Cash App and Venmo were built specifically for the younger generation in the US a decade ago, when it was difficult to send mobile payments to friends and family. Regional varieties of this include GrabPay in South-east Asia, SadaPay in Pakistan and Pix in Brazil.
In China, two national giants provide the payment services for the country. These are AliPay and WeChat Pay, and they command about 90% of the market. AliPay is the default service for Alibaba's Tmall and Taobao, the two largest e-commerce platforms in the country. WeChat Pay is the default service for WeChat, the country's most popular social app.
In India, there is a three way competition for market share between PhonePe, Google Pay and Paytm. PhonePe has accelerated through its early adoption of UPI, India's national bank interface system, which is the most popular way to transact in the country.
With mobile payment adoption expected to continue to grow at a steady rate over the next decade, leaders in a specific country or region could see remarkable revenue growth. Current leaders are building out their platforms in an attempt to create the new wave of fintech products.
We have collected data and statistics on mobile payments. Read on below to find out more.
Key Mobile Payments Statistics
- Mobile payments transaction volume reached $8.1 trillion in 2024, a 9.4% annual increase
- Over 2.7 billion people used mobile payments in 2024
- China has the most usage by country, with 96% of the adult population using mobile payments
- Zelle is the most popular peer-to-peer payment service in the United States
- AliPay and WeChat Pay, the two Chinese mobile payment services, have the most total users
- In India, PhonePe has 45.9% market share for UPI payment volume
Want to learn more about the finance app industry? Our Fintech App report covers financials, usage, installs, demographics and benchmarking data.
Fintech App Report 2025
Top Mobile Payments Apps
| Title | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| https://www.businessofapps.com/data/apple-statistics/#:~:text=Apple%20Pay%20active%20users | Apple Pay | Outside of China, Apple Pay has the largest transaction volume of any mobile payments service |
| https://pay.google.com/intl/en_uk/about/ | Google Pay | Android's default mobile payments solution, responsible for about 50% of all mobile transactions on Android |
| https://www.businessofapps.com/data/paypal-statistics/ | PayPal | Online payments stalwart which was the dominant platform for payments during the web age |
| https://www.businessofapps.com/data/cash-app-statistics/ | Cash App | Square's own payments super-app, which began life as an easy way to send friends money on mobile |
| https://www.businessofapps.com/data/venmo-statistics/ | Venmo | At a time when mobile payments were non-existent in the US, Venmo paved a way with its mobile app |
| https://www.zellepay.com/ | Zelle | A collaborative effort by the major US banks to curtail Venmo and Cash App's growth |
| https://www.samsung.com/uk/samsung-pay/ | Samsung Pay | A distant third in comparison to Apple and Google Pay, but relatively popular with Samsung mobile owners, especially in South Korea |
| https://global.alipay.com/platform/site/ihome | AliPay | The largest mobile payments platform in the world and default payments platform for Alibaba's ecommerce services |
| https://pay.weixin.qq.com/index.php/public/wechatpay | WeChat Pay | Second largest payments platform in China, which is the default payment method on WeChat |
| https://wise.com/money-transfer-app | Wise | Money transfer service Wise has flipped the market on its head with super-cheap international transfers |
| https://www.phonepe.com/ | PhonePe | Flipkart-backed mobile payments service, which has over 300 million users in India |
Finance App Market Landscape
The finance app market can be classified into several distinct subcategories, all of which contribute hundreds of billions of dollars in transaction volume every year. Payments are a key part of this sector, facilitating the transfer of money from accounts and reducing the cost of sending money internationally. You can download the map as a PDF, which includes a landscape version for slides and presentations.
Mobile Payments Transaction Volume
Mobile payments transaction volume reached $8.1 trillion in 2024. Apps make revenue from a small processing fee, usually under 2%, on each transaction.
