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Digital Wallet Usage Around the World

digital wallet usage around the world
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In the past decade, digital wallets, also known as mobile wallets, have been one of the biggest developments in the world of both retail and fintech. Shoppers can use them to place an order online, with the digital wallet remembering all their payment and delivery information to speed up the transaction. At cross border retailers like Ubuy Kenya, this technology is especially helpful, as it allows people to buy products from all over the world, no matter their usual currency. Digital wallets can also turn mobile phones into contactless payment devices, meaning that shoppers can leave their cash and card at home.

As well as the convenience factor, digital wallets also offer security for both businesses and their customers. The way data is encrypted means that shoppers’ payment details are kept safe, and the process also helps protect businesses from fraud and theft, while lowering the transaction costs the business has to pay.

At the start of the decade, the mobile payments transaction volume - excluding China - was $4.44 billion - but by 2023, the volume was almost twice that, at $7.39 billion.

One prediction from Juniper Research suggests that in 2025, the market size of mobile wallet transactions will reach $5704.66 billion in the Far East and China; $1,071.64 billion in North America; $708.49 billion in Europe; $372.41 billion in Latin America; and $1,562.43 billion in the rest of the world.

It’s clear to see that digital wallet use is growing - but now, let’s get into more detail about their use.

Digital wallet security tips

Shoppers who use digital wallets can relax in the knowledge that this technology is totally safe, and your payment information is protected in every transaction, whether it takes place online or in person.

However, there are a few precautions that should be taken to make sure that your digital wallet is as secure as it can be. If you have a digital wallet app like PayPal or Alipay installed on your phone, keep your phone screen locked when not in use so that if your phone is lost or stolen, nobody is able to access the app. As well as locking your phone screen, lock the digital wallet itself - most apps will offer a range of options, from passcodes to fingerprint recognition.

Lastly, don’t use your digital wallet for online shopping transactions over public Wi-Fi unless the website uses Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) - you will know if it does if the URL begins with https instead of http. The increased security will protect you from ‘man in the middle’ attacks, where a bad actor intercepts your internet activity to steal data such as your payment details.

Mobile wallets for in-person shopping

Mobile wallets are hugely popular for in person shopping around the world. 2024 data from Statista showed the number of people who had used this technology to pay in a shop, restaurant or any other location in the past 6 months, across different countries. The country where most people had done so was Kenya, at 80%. China was next, with 72% making an in person payment on their phone with a digital wallet. In third place, 65% of people in Thailand had also done so.

At the other end of the spectrum, the country where the fewest people had used a mobile wallet for in person shopping was Morocco, where only 11% of people had done so in the past year. 14% of people in the Dominican Republic had used this technology recently, and 15% of people in France.

Country Percentage of consumers using mobile wallets for in person shopping
Kenya 80%
China 72%
Thailand 65%
India 63%
Vietnam 61%
Hong Kong 58%
Nigeria 55%
Indonesia 53%
Malaysia 52%
Singapore 52%
Saudi Arabia 49%
Argentina 46%
Denmark 45%
Peru 44%
Taiwan 44%
Colombia 43%
United Arab Emirates 41%
Czechia 39%
Philippines 39%
Portugal 39%
Ireland 39%
Australia 37%
Japan 36%
New Zealand 34%
Poland 34%
United Kingdom 33%
South Korea 33%
Romania 32%
Brazil 32%
Israel 32%
Hungary 31%
Netherlands 30%
Sweden 30%
Switzerland 30%
Lithuania 29%
Finland 27%
South Africa 26%
Pakistan 26%
Greece 26%
United States 25%
Spain 25%
Turkey 25%
Chile 24%
Norway 23%
Belgium 22%
Egypt 22%
Canada 21%
Mexico 19%
Germany 19%
Serbia 19%
Austria 16%
Italy 16%
France 15%
Dominican Republic 14%
Morocco 11%

Online shopping with digital wallets

Digital wallets also play a key role in cross border shopping - they make it possible for businesses to accept payments from customers overseas who use different currencies. It cuts down costs in both directions, making customers more likely to be willing to spend, and meaning that businesses can keep more of their profits.

The most popular digital wallets around the world

We compared some of the most popular digital wallets to see how many countries they are being used in. According to our research, these were the 10 most popular digital wallets with the widest presence across the most countries. The most popular digital wallet by this metric was Apple Pay, which is available in 45 countries, followed by PayPal which can be used in 41 countries. In third place was AliPay, in 39 countries.

Country Totals per app
Apple Pay 45
Paypal 41
Alipay 39
Alipay + 38
Google Pay 37
Wechat Pay 25
Amazon Pay 16
Samsung Pay 13
Grab Pay 3
Mobile Pay 2

When it comes to which countries have the highest number of digital wallets available, the USA, Hong Kong and Malaysia each have 9 digital wallets that shoppers can use.

The next highest number of digital wallets in action is 8 - France, Italy, Portugal and Spain all have this number of providers.

Moving onto countries with 7 types of digital wallets available, there are 14 countries in this list, including Australia, Canada and the UK.

While China only has 3 of the main digital wallets available, this actually serves to show how popular Alipay is here, meaning that most people use this option. WeChat Pay is another population option. In fact, between them, Alipay and WeChat have 90% of the mobile payments market in China.

In contrast, several countries have just 1 of the biggest digital wallet providers available for shoppers: Bahrain, Gibraltar, Mexico and Vietnam. However, these countries also have their own local digital wallets only available to users based in that country, such as Vietnam’s ViettelPay, which were not included in this research due to their smaller user base.

Number of major digital wallets available Countries
9 Hong Kong, Malaysia, USA
8 France, Italy, Portugal, Spain
7 Australia, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, UK
6 Austria, Malta, New Zealand, Slovakia, Slovenia
5 Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Romania
4 Brazil, Indonesia, Lichtenstein
3 China, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Philippines, South Korea, UAE
2 Kuwait, Thailand, Ukraine
1 Bahrain, Gibraltar, Mexico, Vietnam

Top ten in payments processor usage distribution on the entire internet

While not digital wallets themselves, payment processors are vital for facilitating payments that use this technology - and the most popular payment processors might be those that are easiest for businesses and customers alike to use, as well as ones that enable businesses to accept a wider variety of payment methods. Stripe, the most popular payment processor according to research from Built With, is used by 35.67% of the websites in the data set. It accepts over 100 payment methods. The second most popular payment processor is Google Pay, used by 33.81% of websites - what’s different about this technology is that it is also a digital wallet, meaning that the payment process is very smooth and integrated. The third most popular payment processor was Klarna, used by half as many websites at 15.3%. Klarna’s USP might be its ‘buy now pay later feature’.

Technology Websites %
Stripe 1,597,288 35.67
Google Pay 1,514,22 33.81
Klarna 685,221 15.3
PayPal Form 267,763 5.98
Amazon Payments 174,501 3.9
Braintree 164,474 3.67
Wirecard 20,909 0.47
CCBill 12,215 0.27
Checkout.com 11,819 0.26
MasterPass 9,580 0.21

Final thoughts

This convenient and secure technology seems set to become even more popular. Digital wallets are especially popular in China, where the mobile wallet Alipay has expanded to become a ‘super app’ that also enables users to do anything from order a taxi to store a digital version of their ID. Is this the future of digital wallets elsewhere in the world? It certainly makes it easier for shoppers to make their purchases without having to leave the app - which benefits businesses too, helping them provide a frictionless shopping experience. Last year, Elon Musk, the CEO of social media website X, shared his admiration for Chinese super app WeChat and said he would like to make X into something similar. Whether this transformation is possible remains to be seen, but it’s likely that other countries will soon start to see their own super apps emerge that combine digital wallets with other services.

Methodology

The digital wallets included in the research were: Alipay, Apple Pay, Boost Wallet, Cash App Pay, Dana, Doku Wallet, Gcash, Gopay, Google Pay, Grab Pay, Kakao Pay, MB Way, MOMO wallet, Mobile Pay, PayCo, PayMe, Paypal, PayPay, Samsung Pay, Touch N Go Digital, Wechat Pay, Amazon Pay.