Digital wallet spending to skyrocket in the next five years, study suggests

Digital wallets
(Image credit: Visa)

Spending using digital wallets is set to exceed $10 trillion by 2025 according to new data from Juniper Research, highlighting a huge upturn in the popularity of mobile payments, with a jump of $5.5 trillion compared to 2020.

The rise, which indicates a growth of 83%, has been exacerbated by growing demand for contactless payments during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Digital wallets let consumers pay with touch-free convenience and allow for payments via POS terminals or from anywhere within range of a mobile phone signal for remote transactions.

Contactless and e-commerce payments will subsequently account for 50% of all wallet spend in 2025, the study predicts. That marks an increase of just under 36% compared to 2020, which is causing digital wallet providers to make them a high priority for boosting their merchant networks.

However, the research highlighted how merchants are facing challenges, most notably around acceptance and cost. Integrating mobile wallet technology into existing e-commerce infrastructure is seen by some businesses as being a potential obstacle.

Digital wallets

Research co-author Alexandria Sadler explains: “Merchants must base their payment strategies around wallet acceptance in order to support a digitally-engaged addressable market, but must also judge the right wallets to target, or they will be lumbered with increased costs and limited benefits.”

Despite the challenges for merchants, digital wallets will continue to grow in popularity because of the continuing pandemic and consumer desire to go contactless. Juniper’s data underlined the upward curve, with over 34% of mobile phones set to use contactless payments by 2025, a rise of 11% compared to 2020.

Rob Clymo

Rob Clymo has been a tech journalist for more years than he can actually remember, having started out in the wacky world of print magazines before discovering the power of the internet. Since he's been all-digital he has run the Innovation channel during a few years at Microsoft as well as turning out regular news, reviews, features and other content for the likes of TechRadar, TechRadar Pro, Tom's Guide, Fit&Well, Gizmodo, Shortlist, Automotive Interiors World, Automotive Testing Technology International, Future of Transportation and Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Technology International. In the rare moments he's not working he's usually out and about on one of numerous e-bikes in his collection.

Latest in Pro
Microsoft Copiot Studio deep reasoning and agent flows
Microsoft reveals OpenAI-powered Copilot AI agents to bosot your work research and data analysis
Group of people meeting
Inflexible work policies are pushing tech workers to quit
Representational image depecting cybersecurity protection
Third-party security issues could be the biggest threat facing your business
An image of network security icons for a network encircling a digital blue earth.
Why multi-CDNs are going to shake up 2025
A stylized depiction of a padlocked WiFi symbol sitting in the centre of an interlocking vault.
Broadcom warns of worrying security flaws affecting VMware tools
Android Logo
Devious new Android malware uses a Microsoft tool to avoid being spotted
Latest in News
EA Sports F1 25 promotional image featuring drivers Oscar Piastri, Carlos Sainz and Oliver Bearman.
F1 25 has been officially announced, with this year's entry marking a return for Braking Point and a 'significant overhaul' for My Team mode
Garmin clippd integration
Garmin's golf watches just got a big software integration upgrade to help you improve your game
Robert Downey Jr reveals himself as Doctor Doom to a delighted crowd at San Diego Comic-Con 2024
Marvel is currently making a major announcement about Avengers: Doomsday's cast on YouTube, and I think it's going to be a long-winded reveal
Samsung QN90F on yellow background
Samsung announces US prices for its 2025 mini-LED TV lineup, and it’s good and bad news
Nintendo Switch Lite
Forget the Nintendo Switch 2, the original Switch is getting one last hurrah in a surprise Nintendo Direct tomorrow
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge on display the January 22, 2025 Galaxy Unpacked event.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge colors seemingly revealed in new video, and there’s another sign of an imminent launch