The amount of card payments made through the Apple Pay service was confirmed to be 2 trillion won last year. This is just 1% of the total card payment amount made by Hyundai Card, the only provider of Apple Pay services in Korea. It is estimated that this figure is about 40 times less compared to the payment scale of Samsung Pay. The card industry analyzed that the small spread of Apple Pay payment terminals and the fact that major use cases for Apple Pay are small merchants contribute to its low rate of payment occurrence.
According to data submitted by Hyundai Card to the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee member Lee In-young of the Democratic Party on the 11th, the approved amount for Hyundai Card payments using Apple Pay last year was 2 trillion 97 billion won. The total approved amount for Hyundai Card's card payments last year was 185 trillion 5664 billion won, of which the proportion of Apple Pay payments was 1.1%. Last year, the total number of approved payments by Hyundai Card was 3.25572 billion, and the number of approved payments using Apple Pay was 128.23 million, representing 3.9%. The average payment amount per transaction was around 15,000 won.
The scale of Apple Pay transactions shows a significant gap compared to Samsung Pay, which was introduced in Korea first. According to the Bank of Korea, the average daily payment amount using easy payment services from smartphone manufacturers (Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Apple) was 237.3 billion won in the first half of last year. Assuming that this average amount was maintained in the second half, the annual easy payment amount would be 86 trillion 632.8 billion won. Considering the low usage rate of LG Pay and the fact that the service was discontinued in July last year, it's assumed that there was no use of LG Pay at all, making Samsung Pay’s annual transaction amount approximately 84 trillion won, around 42 times more than Apple Pay.
The card industry believes that the amount of Apple Pay transactions is not high due to the characteristics of card payment terminal distribution in Korea. Apple Pay uses the EMV (Europay, Mastercard, Visa) method, which is an overseas payment standard. It is reported that only about 10% of all card merchant establishments in Korea have installed terminals that support EMV payments. In contrast, Samsung Pay supports payments through magnetic signals, allowing it to be used with the card terminals commonly installed in the country.
Furthermore, the card industry analyzed that the installation of EMV payment supporting terminals is mainly concentrated in places such as convenience stores and cafes, where small payments occur, thus limiting the scale of Apple Pay transactions. A card industry official noted, "With the EMV terminal penetration rate around 10% and only 1% of Hyundai Card's payment amount attributed to Apple Pay, the impact on card sales has been quite minimal." The official added, "Since Apple Pay is primarily used in cafes and convenience stores, it appears that it has not resulted in significant sales effects."