It’s becoming harder, not easier, to pay at stores with Apple Inc's (NASDAQ:AAPL) Apple Pay and Alphabet Inc's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Google mobile wallets — at least that's what the results of the sixth-annual Mobile Payments & Fraud Survey from Kount, a risk management firm, suggest.
The number of the nearly 600 respondents across 29 industries who accepted Apple Pay this year slumped to 35% from 48% last year.
Elsewhere, the rate of take-up is even worse for Google Pay, which is only being accepted by 25% of those merchants polled in the study. That's down from 38% last year.
READ: Apple bans cryptocurrency mining apps on its iPhone, iPad devices
The sole mobile payment app to grow its business over the last twelve months is American Express Co's (NYSE:AXP) AMEX Express Checkout, which is now being accepted by 16% of survey participants, up from 9% last year.
Apple shares are flat at US$190.66 in afternoon trade while class A shares of Google’s parent Alphabet are up slightly at US$1,157.28.