Study Finds Lower Consumer Awareness of Digital Wallets
Just 51 percent of U.S. consumers are aware of digital payment providers apart from PayPal, and a only 12 percent have actually used digital wallet applications, according to a new ComScore study. “Digital wallets represent an innovative technology that has not yet reached critical mass among consumers due to a variety of factors, including low awareness and a muddied understanding of their benefits,” says ComScore’s Andrea Jacobs. However, about 75 percent of survey respondents said they were aware of PayPal and nearly half said they had used the technology. Meanwhile, only 48 percent were aware of and 8 percent used Google’s digital wallet. The awareness and usage scores of other digital wallet offerings were so low as to indicate a thorough lack of consumer awareness and understanding. Security concerns about hacking or phone or identity theft appear to be contributors to the lack of digital wallet adoption. ComScore found that 93 percent of respondents preferred using a digital wallet that requires unlocking, although only 57 percent were aware of such a feature’s availability. Nevertheless, Jacobs says “it would seem that the future is bright for digital wallets, but it will require deliberate execution of strategies such as sound marketing for this technology to realize its full potential.”
CNet (02/04/13) Van Grove, Jennifer