When we first heard that Apple was going to jump into mobile payments, we knew big things were about to happen. Even though mobile payments have been around for a while now, Apple seems to have a way with driving adoption of new technologies in pretty big ways. For this reason, the team at Lab42 wanted to capture consumer insights before Apple Pay officially launched to the public and people started adopting mobile payments at higher volumes. We surveyed 500 cell phone owners and found that 45 percent of consumers with non-iOS devices would be willing to switch to an iOS device solely for access to Apple Pay. The top four benefits of Apple Pay, according to the respondents, were security, not worrying about losing credit or debit cards, not having to carry physical cards in their wallet, and simple setup.Consumers are ready to try out Apple Pay. Fifty-four percent of all respondents would consider using Apple Pay, while the remaining forty-six percent were evenly split between those who were unsure about trying it and those who would not consider trying Apple Pay (each at 23%).

The study also revealed the general sentiment of consumers’ perceptions towards mobile payments. Nearly a third of respondents (30%) said they would be willing to switch banks in order to have access to mobile payments. This statistic, in addition to the willingness of consumers to switch mobile devices for access to mobile payments, is indicative of a major shift in thinking and behavior when it comes to payments.

The study also showed that consumers still harbored concerns about mobile payments. Sixty percent of respondents were concerned that their credit card information could get stolen while using mobile payments, 55 percent were worried that their smartphone could get stolen, and 42 percent were concerned about their inability to use mobile payments if their smartphone’s battery died.The study also uncovered the following findings:

• Sixty-three percent of respondents had heard of Google Wallet, and among that group, 32 percent had tried it.

• The top three locations consumers would like to use mobile payments are: 1) Grocery stores, 2) Retail stores, 3) Gas stations

• Thirty-five percent of respondents are planning to start using mobile payments within the next six months.

Learn more about Lab42 and our methodology by checking out our website.