Apple Pay will be available in CVS pharmacies and 7-Eleven convenience stores later this year, Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a call with investors after the company's positive quarterly results.
A survey from earlier this year revealed that more millennials are choosing Apple Pay as their digital payment platform, rather than Google Pay and Samsung Pay. This is just one of the signs of Apple Pay's growth, as it expands even into once hostile territories.
Apple Pay Availability In CVS, 7-Eleven Outlets
According to Cook, CVS and 7-Eleven will introduce support for tap-to-pay services within the year, starting with Apple Pay. There was no specific date on when the two retailers will start accepting Apple Pay transactions, but it shows a complete turnaround for what once was two opponents of Apple.
CVS and 7-Eleven were members of the Merchant Customer Exchange, the alliance behind the CurrentC mobile payment format. It was supposed to reduce transaction fees and gather more data about customers, with some retailers even dropping tap-to-pay systems to support it.
Merchant Customer Exchange, however, did not take off. The QR code system of the platform was clunky compared to simply tapping a smartphone on a reader, and its long development time allowed services such as Apple Pay to take the spotlight. CVS and 7-Eleven now find themselves agreeing to support tap-to-pay services to be able to keep with the times.
With CVS and 7-Eleven signing up for mobile payments, Apple Pay further expands its availability in major retail stores across the United States.
The Success Of Apple Pay
In the same call with investors, Cook revealed the success that Apple Pay has reached compared to its rival services.
According to Cook, Apple Pay handled over 1 billion transactions in the previous quarter, triple the number compared to the same quarter of 2017 and beating competitor Square. Apple Pay also handled more mobile transactions compared to PayPal.
In addition to the arrival of Apple Pay to CVS and 7-Eleven outlets, it will also be launching soon in Germany. This will add to the over two dozen countries and regions where the service is available, with 4,900 banking partners.
Apple Pay has continued to roll out improvements and new features to its service, such as Apple Pay Cash late last year. The feature allowed users to send and receive money directly through iMessage, challenging PayPal's Venmo service.
