Apple Pay

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It’s no surprise that the three major card companies in the US have been taking advantage of being the first with Apple Pay out the door and that the majority of their latest ads and promotions have centered around the new payment service. The latest comes from American Express with a just released ad focusing on highlighting Apple Pay as “The Next Evolution of Membership.”

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While Swatch certainly won’t be partnering with Apple on the iPhone maker’s upcoming Watch despite an ill-fated rumor that surfaced last year, the watchmaker does plan to go toe-to-toe with Apple promising its own version of a smartwatch due out soon. Bloomberg reports that Swatch plans to bring its answer to the Apple Watch to market in the next 90 days.

The device will communicate via the Internet “without having to be charged,” Chief Executive Officer Nick Hayek said in an interview. The Swatch smartwatch will also let consumers make mobile payments and work with Windows and Android software, he said.

It’s unclear if Swatch intends for its own smartwatch to be compatible with iPhones like the Apple Watch or if the company is only targeting competing platforms, but Swatch CEO Nick Hayek’s claim that its Internet-connected watch won’t need to be charged will be interesting if the company does indeed deliver with functionality that competes with an Apple Watch.
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Last month Apple rolled out support for dozens of banks and credit unions with Apple Pay bringing the count to more than 45 institutions, and today Apple is out with the first wave of the month adding more than a dozen new banks to its list of supported Apple Pay banks bringing the total count to over 60 institutions. Here are the new banks listed as supporting Apple Pay as of today:
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Apple announced a lot of numbers during its fiscal Q1 2015 earnings call today in addition to confirming the Apple Watch will ship in April. Some of Apple’s highlights include numbers on Apple Pay since its launch in October, the 1 billionth iOS device shipping in November, and big growth in China as Apple sells a record 74.4 million iPhones during the quarter.

Head below for a roundup of stats and milestones that Apple announced during the call:
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Apple CEO Tim Cook shared some stats on Apple Pay during the company’s fiscal Q1 2015 earnings call today. Among them: Cook said that around $2 out of every $3 spent using contactless payments across Visa, Mastercard, and American Express are being made with Apple Pay since the service launched in October.   

Also of note: Apple has now signed on around 750 banks and credit unions that will roll out support for the service. That’s up from the 500 banks Apple initially announced it had signed on to support the service. Currently Apple has rolled out support for cards from a 45+ banks and credit unions in the US. 
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As it revealed earlier this month, Apple will have its quarterly conference call today at 2 PM Pacific/5 PM Eastern to discuss earnings from its fiscal year 2015 first quarter results. These results include sales 74.4 million iPhones, 21.4 million iPads, and 5.5 million Macs. Earlier today the company reported that it earned $74.6 billion in revenue during FY 2015 Q1.

While Apple’s previous quarter included the opening weekend of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sales, today’s numbers include the bulk of the sales in the United States and the initial sales of the new models in key markets including China. Today’s reported numbers do include the first sales numbers for the iPad since Apple began shipping the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3, and the first Mac numbers since the Retina 5K iMac went on sale. Apple Pay will also be an area of interest for listeners as the mobile payment service only launched the day of the last quarterly conference call.

Investors and analysts will have an opportunity to ask Tim Cook and company questions during the earnings call, and we’ll be listening closely to bring you coverage.
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(Image via Michael Steeber)

Apple announced its Q1 2015 earnings results today reporting $74.6 billion in revenue earning $18 billion in profit during the three-month period.

Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2015 first quarter ended December 27, 2014. The Company posted record quarterly revenue of $74.6 billion and record quarterly net profit of $18 billion, or $3.06 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $57.6 billion and net profit of $13.1 billion, or $2.07 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 39.9 percent compared to 37.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 65 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

In addition to its revenue and profit disclosure, Apple reported sales numbers for the following categories:

• iPhone: 74.4 million units
• iPad: 21.4 million units
• Mac: 5.5 million units
• iTunes: $4.7 billion
• Accessories: $2.6 billion

Totals:

• Revenue: $74.6 billion
• EPS: $3.06 per share

Apple CEO Tim Cook said the following regarding the quarter:

“We’d like to thank our customers for an incredible quarter, which saw demand for Apple products soar to an all-time high,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Our revenue grew 30 percent over last year to $74.6 billion, and the execution by our teams to achieve these results was simply phenomenal.”

Apple CFO Luca Maestri added this:

“Our exceptional results produced EPS growth of 48 percent over last year, and $33.7 billion in operating cash flow during the quarter, an all-time record,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We spent over $8 billion on our capital return program, bringing total returns to investors to almost $103 billion, over $57 billion of which occurred in just the last 12 months.”

Ahead of today’s earnings report, sales numbers for both the iPhone and iPad were particular areas of interest. Q1 2015 held the bulk of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sales in the United States and saw the new iPhone models debut in key countries like China. Meanwhile, the iPad sales numbers were particularly interested following last quarter’s year-over-year shipment decrease and the release of the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 in October.

Apple’s Q1 2015 numbers follow last quarter’s results of $42.1 billion in revenue and sales of 39 million iPhones, 12.3 million iPads, and 5.5 million Macs. For the same quarter a year ago, Apple reported $57.6 billion in revenue and sales of 51 million iPhones, 26 million iPads, and 4.8 million Macs. Compare also to profit last quarter of $8.5 million and a year ago of $13.1 billion.

Apple will hold its conference call today at 2 PM Pacific/5 PM Eastern to discuss the quarter’s numbers, follow along for our coverage then. Both Cook and Maestri will likely share prepared remarks then answer a round of questions from analysts on the call.

For Q2 2015 Apple is providing guidance between $52 billion and $55 billion. The full Q1 earnings results release is below:

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While individual retailers have been announcing support for Apple Pay as more NFC terminals enable the service, it’s still hit and miss on vending machines and other self-serve, unattended hardware. USA Technologies today announced it’s bringing support to around 200,000 of these self-serve payment terminals that its customers use for everything from coffee brewers to vending machines, kiosks, laundry equipment and pay parking terminals.
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Western Union announced today that it’s now accepting Apple Pay, Apple’s new iPhone-based NFC payment service, across all of its flagship locations in the US.

That means you can now use the contactless payment service to send money and pay bills through Western Union stores as well as kiosks in around 7,600 Walgreens and Duane Reade stores.
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While Apple Pay is the gold standard for safe card transactions, some partner banks are leaving customers vulnerable to fraud via identity theft thanks to weak checks when cards are added to Apple Pay, according to mobile commerce consultants Drop Labs. Some partner banks are consequently seeing fraud rates six times higher than with physical cards.

For consumers, Apple Pay is extremely safe, thanks to the use of Touch ID fingerprint verification and single-use code transmission rather than sharing full card details. Drop Labs claims that the weak link in the chain is what happens when cards are added to Apple Pay … 
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MasterCard announced today that it’s bringing Apple Pay to the PGA Tour starting with its first stop at the Waste Management Phoenix Open kicking off this week.

MasterCard will also offer attendees using Apple Pay the chance to earn rewards through its Priceless Surprise program.
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Determined to stymie the inevitable flood of fraudulent transactions using Apple Pay and other mobile wallets (/s), one Missouri lawmaker has proposed a new law that would require shoppers to pull out a photo ID and prove they truly are who they say they are before they will be allowed to continue with the process of scanning their unique fingerprint on a high-tech piece of equipment designed specifically for the purpose of verifying their identity without the need for a physical identification card.

From a local report:

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If you were puzzled by the fact that the $73M compensation package paid to retail head Angela Ahrendts dwarfed those awarded to other senior Apple execs, including Tim Cook’s $9.2M, Apple explained that it was in large part to compensate her for unvested Burberry stock she lost by leaving the company … 
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Following the addition of eight additional card issuers and banks earlier this month, Apple has updated its list of supported institutions and card types to include 15 more credit unions and banks. These new banks are listed as supporting Apple Pay as of today:
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Bank of America, which partnered with Apple to rollout Apple Pay at launch last October, has announced new customer data on adoption of the iPhone-based mobile payment service. The bank’s most recent quarterly earnings reveal that nearly 800,000 of its customers have begun using Apple Pay with a total of about 1.1 million debit and credit cards activated.

In addition to the latest customer data from Bank of America, support for paying with Apple Pay is popping up in another grocery store chain…
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Yesterday, we reported that the latest iOS 8.2 beta reveals that an Apple Watch application for the iPhone is in the works. Now, we have some more details. Within Apple, the application is currently called the Apple Watch “Companion” app for iPhone. This application manages settings for Apple Watch applications, as well as settings for iPhone/Watch interactivity. The Companion app’s settings reveal some novel new functions that are coming to the Apple Watch. Below, we highlight some of the most interesting new features and settings.

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Apple is preparing to expand its new Apple Pay payments service internationally with at least the Canadian launch currently scheduled for early 2015, according to sources close to the situation.
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Apple’s list of supported banks and card issuers for Apple Pay is growing again today with the addition of 8 new banks and credit unions, according to sources with knowledge of the matter. The full list of newly supported card issuers includes:
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Update: Users in the thread are now reporting that the problem has been resolved.

Multiple iPhone 6 owners are reporting in an Apple Support Communities thread that they are unable to add cards back into Apple Pay after their phone has been restored – whether as a new phone or from a backup. According to reports there, Apple has been able to resolve the issue only by replacing the phone.

I just left the Apple Store. They couldn’t diagnose the issue and we did a restore there in store and the problem persisted. The solution was to swap the hardware […]

I ended up going to the Apple Store and going to the genius bar. They proceeded to do all the thing I already tried. After they did a restore and set up as a new phone and saw they it didn’t work they went in the back and brought out a new phone. I fired up the phone and went thru steps to add my cards to Apple pay and everything worked. So getting a new phone fixed the issue.

The symptoms seem to suggest that the secure enclave is not being completely cleared, despite notifications from banks that cards have been removed at the point when the phone was restored … 
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The Big Apple is considering letting drivers pay for their parking tickets using their big Apple phones, MarketWatch reports. New York City is said to be looking to update its old system with something a little more user-friendly, and is currently considering several options, including Apple Pay.

The main idea for the new system is a mobile app that would allow users to scan in a parking ticket, either by barcode or some other means, then pay the fine instantly using Apple Pay or another payment system, such as PayPal, or possibly even Bitcoin.

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Gas station chain Chevron is planning to integrate support for Apple Pay checkouts at its pumps starting early next year, according to Bloomberg. Chevron has already supported Apple Pay inside many of its stores since Apple’s iPhone-based mobile payment service launched earlier this year in late October.
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