It has been three weeks since Apple Inc. threw their hat in the ring of mobile payment services. Apple Pay is not dominating…yet, but they have had a promising start.

In the past three weeks, consumers have been eager to try out the new payment system and, according to a report in the New York Times; retailers are seeing some promising numbers. Whole Foods Market Inc. have processed more than 150 000 Apple Pay transactions since launch. Walgreen Company’s mobile wallet payments have doubled in the three weeks; while McDonalds Corp., which accepts Apple Pay at 14 000 stores across the U.S., saw 50 percent of its tap-to-pay transactions going the way of Apple.

Denée Carrington, an analyst with Forrester Research said, “Quite frankly, a lot of it has to do with the strength of the Apple brand and how much merchants and customers love how easy the experience is. I’m not saying it’s changing the landscape overnight. But this has never happened with other mobile wallets.”

On the other hand, Apple Pay is supported in all 870 Toys “R” Us, Inc. stores and even though they have seen an increased in mobile payments, they remain relatively low compared to traditional payment methods.

According to The New York Times, Apple Pay isn’t the only provider to benefit from the growth in popularity of tap-to-pay payments. User engagement and downloads have spiked for Softcard and Google Inc.’s Wallet, which are available for Android and Windows phones.

Chief executive of Softcard, Michael Abbott said “Apple Pay has been a huge tailwind”. According to Abbot, since the launch of Apple Pay, Softcard, which is backed by AT&T Corp., T-Mobile US Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., has seen an increase in new customer downloads and increased engagement by existing customers.

According to research firm Gartner Inc., $235.4 billion was spent worldwide through mobile payments in 2013. This is a 44 percent increase from the 2012 figure of $163.1 billion. However, even though the popularity is increasing, the figure still remains pretty low. In North America, only $37 billion is spent via mobile transactions.

According to telecom analyst for Jackdaw Research, Jan Dawson, “Apple Pay is going to be a slow-burn success. Until then, it will be something of a novelty and something that most consumers use occasionally if they use it at all. That’s still enormous progress”. This is mainly due to the fact that many American merchants don’t support mobile transactions yet, and the fact that Apple Pay is only supported on  iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

photo credit: Jason A. Howie via photopin cc