Apple’s share of smartphone users in the US is expected to remain static in 2016, accounting for a 43.5% share, from 43.3% in 2015, according to new data from eMarketer. Android, by comparison, will see its share of US smartphone users rise slightly to 52.0%, up from 51.7% the previous year, adds the research firm.
Although the number of overall iPad users continues to increase, Apple has been losing share in the U.S. tablet market. After falling below 50% for the first time in 2015, Apple’s share of the tablet market is expected to drop to 47.8% in 2016, per eMarketer’s estimates. By 2020, eMarketer estimates that 44% of tablet users in the US will be using an iPad. This year, eMarketer estimates that 51.4% of Americans will use a tablet once a month, totaling 168.2 million.
In the UK, Apple is expected to account for a 31.8% share of smartphone users this year, a slight increase from 31.6% last year. eMarketer estimates Android will account for 55.7% of UK smartphone users this year, compared to 55.3% last year.
eMarketer expects there to be 17.8 million iPad users in the UK in 2016, representing 27.1% of the population. That figure also represents 50.7% of UK tablet users, which eMarketer estimates will be up from a 49.5% share of all tablet users last year.
This year, eMarketer estimates, 35.2 million people in the UK will use a tablet at least once per month, up from 32.8 million users last year. By 2020 this figure is forecasted to rise to 41.5 million.
Apple TV trails the US connected TV market, behind Google Chromecast and Roku, with its share shrinking. This year, 11.3% of connected TV users will subscribe to Apple TV, compared with 16.8% for Chromecast and 16.4% for Roku.
Based on eMarketer’s latest forecast, US mobile proximity payments — which include payments made with a smartphone at the point of sale in place of a credit card or cash — are expected to reach $27.67 billion in 2016, according to eMarketer. That figure will more than double in 2017, to $62.49 billion. By 2020, mobile proximity payments ($314.13 billion) will exceed retail smartphone commerce sales ($261.62 billion), according to eMarketer’s estimates.
There will be 38.4 million US mobile proximity payments users in the US in 2016, according to eMarketer. That figure will rise to 50.8 million in 2017 and reach 76.0 million, or close to one-third of smartphone users, by 2020.
Peer-to-peer (P2P) mobile payments in the US are also on the rise. In 2016, close to one-quarter of US adults (45.8 million people) will make at least one peer-to-peer transaction on their mobile phone per month, totaling $59.42 billion. Mobile P2P payment apps like Venmo and Square Cash are taking advantage of Apple’s new iMessage and Siri SDKs in iOS 10 to make it easier to transfer funds to friends and family.
“With the launch of iOS 10 and macOS Sierra, Apple is following through with its plans to extend Apple Pay to the web, as well as enhancing the capabilities of third-party mobile app developers to enable new payment experiences in iMessage and Siri,” says Bryan Yeager, senior analyst, eMarketer. “Though an abundance of research points to consumers not yet replacing their physical wallet with a mobile one, Apple continues to lay the groundwork in the US and around the world to make commerce more frictionless while maintaining a high degree of security. Cementing consumer trust that mobile payments are secure will be critical to mass market adoption.”
