Apple released its initial sales figures for the iPhone 5: “more than 5 million.” Citing supply constraints the company said it has sold out of its initial batch of devices. But in a way what’s more interesting and significant are the iOS 6 numbers the company put out.
Apple said there were now 100 million people using iOS 6 around the world. I had conservatively speculated that there were maybe 15 million iOS 6 devices before the weekend. But that was way off — way off.
What this means is that there are now 100 million Passbook-enabled devices in the market. That makes Apple — provided it can remedy the “cannot connect” problem and educate consumers about Passbook — the leading mobile wallet provider out of the gate. Apple doesn’t have to carry the full burden of education; companies and retailers will do some of that.
The implications of the 100 million installs of iOS 6 and Passbook are huge for consumers, brands, retailers and potentially even SMBs. Passbook could lay the foundation for mobile wallet usage globally by educating consumers about the benefits of mobile wallets and help make them more comfortable with the idea.
Currently there’s only limited interest in the US in mobile payments and mobile wallets. Consumers, for the most part, have yet to see tangible benefits from mobile wallets and so remain unconvinced or ignorant about them. Passbook is in an almost unique position to change that.
September 25th, 2012 at 5:11 am
Does this mean that 99 million people have now complained about Apple Maps?
On the wallet front, yes Apple does have everyone’s credit card associated with their Apple ID. Plus, Apple users absolutely adore the Apple Brand and what it stands for, so trust wouldn’t be an issue. However, payments (and avoiding fraud) seems like a massive global challenge. Would Apple really try to go there?
September 25th, 2012 at 11:47 am
[...] deals to strike – before it will come close to an equivalent offering.On the other hand, 100 million people have already installed iOS6, no doubt due in part to the ease of upgrading via iCloud. That’s a whopping 25% of the 400 [...]
September 25th, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Apple’s not trying to do payments in a full-blown sense out of the gate. Passbook is a mobile wallet that can accommodate stored value cards and gift card among other types of things. These will drive transactions at the POS — so mobile payments. But Apple isn’t yet turning on the iTunes credit card as a payment option. I suspect they’re waiting to gather information and feedback about usage and then, later, they’ll make the stored credit card a payment option. However the question there is the merchant experience. The iPhone is not an NFC device so there would need to be a scanned bar code or keyed in card number (which results in higher fees for the merchant and no convenience for the consumer). I’m sure Apple has this on its roadmap however.