More smartphone users in Canada have plans to increase their mobile payment usage this year than last year, according to research breaking out intentions by demographic. Regardless of age or gender, mobile payments appear to be getting more popular.
In 2015, for example, Catalyst Canada found that 26% of those surveyed said they planned to make more mobile payments over the coming year; in 2016, that figure is 33%. Bigger steps come with nonmillennials, who are 10 percentage points more likely to say they plan to make more mobile payments this year than last year.
Mobile payment users in Canada use a range of mobile payment apps, depending on both age and gender. PayPal is the most popular, and is used more by males than females, and less by millennials than nonmillennials.
While 76% of male mobile payment users in Canada use Paypal, 63% of females do, a sizeable difference. While less of a gap, it’s worth noting that 67% of millennials use it, along with 72% of nonmillennials. PayPal has become a traditional mobile payment app that older users find trustworthy.
Meanwhile, other gender and age disparities exist. Take the Starbucks app, used more frequently by females—at 47% to 37%—and by millennials. And then there’s Google Wallet, which is in some ways a newer version of PayPal: 31% of millennial users in Canada use it, while just 19% of nonmillennials do the same.
Worth noting is a February 2016 report from GfK, which lists PayPal as the only mobile payment platform used by a significant share of internet users in Canada, at 65%.