More 26-to-35-year-olds using mobile payments

The number of users of mobile payments aged 26 to 35 increased by 14.7 percent in the first half of the year, the highest among all age groups, the Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC, 產業情報研究所) said in a survey released on Monday.

The government-funded institute said that a poll of 534 effective samples found that 26-to-35-year-olds have the highest rate of domestic use of mobile payments, up to 75.5 percent.

MIC analyst Nephy Hu (胡自立) said that although credit cards remain the most popular means of payment, about 27.2 percent of consumers have expressed willingness to make purchases through mobile payment systems, up 11.2 percentage points from 2017.

The nation’s top five mobile payment systems are Line Pay, JKo Pay (街口支付), Apple Pay, Google Pay and Taiwan Pay.

Although Taiwanese consumers are slowly developing brand loyalty toward various mobile payment systems, more retailers are setting up their own mobile payment services to carve out market share, Hu said.

The penetration rate of such brands grew from 5.1 percent last year to 14.4 percent in the first half of this year, including those launched by EasyCard Corp (悠遊卡), President Chain Store Corp (統一超商), Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店) and Pi Mobile Technology Inc (拍付國際).

The biggest advantages that these brands have is predominantly their novelty factor and membership-based reward programs, Hu said.

While many international brands continue to adopt near-field communication technology, QR code payment has a higher utilization rate of 87.5 percent compared with 60.2 percent, the report said.

The advantage of QR codes is that they are more accessible for smaller stores and restaurants.

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