Whether mindshare is an accurate analog for market share is meaningful only when a company, candidate or institution is in a p0sition to meld the two. Based on “Likes”, Tweets, live feeds, second-day coverage and a predictable drop in share price, Apple is not just a company that can but might.
Setting aside the new smartphones, operating system, even the watch, still leaves us with Apple Pay as anecdotal evidence. Sure, there is underlying technology and a web of legal partnerships that make Apple Pay possible; it can be done. But it is an overlay of trust and confidence in the company (despite recent setbacks) that gives it a chance that it might be done and, as some have said, “rock the world of payments.” Especially since previous attempts have failed or flagged.
It may be that just as the company gave consumers an digital music device we didn’t know we needed, a smartphone we didn’t know we needed and a tablet that seemed not to fit, all three products have remade our definition of necessary. The ease of swiping a credit card and the ubiquity of the machines to read them make Apple Pay a bit unnecessary, too. At first glance. If consumer confidence in that simple swipe were a bit higher, there would not be a real market opportunity for it to be supplanted, no matter how elegant the option. But a closer look reveals the cracks in the current approach to shopping on credit.
Identity theft and data breaches linked to some of the biggest and respected retailers in the country have given us all pause to wonder just what happens to the information we disgorge at the checkout counter. Who has access? Is it secure? Will it be used on my behalf or redirected for other, even unstated purposes? These are questions that create anxiety and the market opportunity.
Whom would you trust to deliver on a new solution? You have a credit card in your wallet, but would you pick Wells Fargo, Citi or Bank of America? You likely have a smartphone in your pocket or purse, but would you pick AT&T or Verizon? You even regularly visit the same small number of stores, but would you pick The Gap, Macy’s or Wal-Mart? Even Amazon, the closest thing to a payments intermediary partner online, has been focused online, only now (slowly) moving into the real world on the strength of its Fire Phone. It is into this combination of need and anxiety that Apple has moved.
It highlights, again, the bottom line value of trust. Long thought to be the ephemeral product of advertising, word-of-mouth endorsement and price, trust is now more clearly seen as the product of product performance over time, delivering on promises made, particularly about data protection and use, and tangible security to protect it all. This equation, performance + privacy + security = trust is exactly what Apple has solved.
People may not abandon their wallets (states will take awhile before moving to digital-only drivers’ licenses, for example), but the payments flexibility that began in the late ’60s with the first ATM will likely take a step forward with a mobile payments option that suits the need and is delivered by a company likely to deliver.
