Research conducted in Japan has shown that people there are unlikely to use smartphone contactless payment options. The study, performed by KDDI Corporation, found that just one in every five smartphone owners in the country made a contactless payment in June this year. This number was stable across all demographics, with each age group from 15 to 59 reaching around a 20% user rate. eMarketer estimates that the reason behind this low number is that consumers in the country have had free use of contactless credit and debit cards for a long time, rendering the action of getting out a phone instead an additional hassle. It was also found in the survey that nearly 40% of smartphone users in Japan had security concerns around mobile contactless payments, such as mobile devices being more open to fraud.Â
