Leading mobile wallet apps market share Philippines 2020

The Philippines is among the countries in Southeast Asia seeing sustained growth in mobile payment transactions. In 2020, GCash had a 49.4 percent share of the total mobile wallet applications market. In comparison, PayMaya accounted for a market share of nearly 42 percent.

 How does mobile wallet work?

In a country with one of the lowest financial services penetrations in Asia Pacific, alternative payment services enabled through mobile wallets allow users to easily make in-store payments as well as transfer and receive money digitally sans physical bank cards or bank visits. Mobile wallet applications such as Apple Pay, PayPal, and Google Pay are usually built-in in a user’s mobile device or can be downloaded as an application from app stores. The popularity of such banking options is reflected in the forecast number of mobile wallet users in the country.

 Consumer preference for e-payment methods 

A recent survey among Filipino consumers reflected a growing interest in using digital payment methods especially due to the minimal person-to-person transactions implemented amid the COVID-19 pandemic. While cash payments were still preferred by more than half of the surveyed population, digital banking options such as mobile wallet and card online was chosen by 15 percent and 13 percent of the respondents, respectively. In an earlier survey, most of the surveyed Filipinos stated that their main reasons for choosing e-payment methods were convenience, easy-to-use platforms, and fast transactions.