As Apple Card launch nears, Apple Pay use reaches new heights

The Apple Card drew a lot of attention when it was announced in March, and it's finally time to see if that buzz translates to adoption.

Apple CEO Tim Cook provided little new information on the product during the company's third-quarter earnings call Tuesday afternoon, but he did narrow the launch window.

"The Apple card has been in testing with Apple employees. We plan to begin the rollout of Apple Card in August,” Cook said.

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

The Apple Pay business, which is distinct from the Apple Card, grew due to a combination of new market launches, new customer sign ups and increases in usage.

“Apple Pay is now completing nearly 1 billion transactions per month," Cook said. "Apple Pay is now adding more monthly users than PayPal is doing. In China, Apple Pay launched the card for DiDi, the world’s largest ride hailing app."

Apple Pay is best known as a mobile wallet built into iPhones, but it also works on the Apple Watch, and has been a core feature of the wearable since the device's launch. Any growth for Apple Watch could lead to more use of Apple Pay.

“We had a blowout quarter for wearables," Cook said. Combined services group and wearables group revenues approach that of a Fortune 200 company, Apple said.

Apple reported that it launched Apple Pay in 17 new countries during its third quarter of 2019, ending June 30, which brought the total number of countries with Apple Pay to 47. Apple delivered $2.18 earnings per share (diluted) for its fiscal third quarter, beating Wall Street consensus expectations of $2.10 according to Zack’s Investment Research. Apple reported that overall revenue growth, particularly in each geographic region and growth in all non-iPhone segments helped lift the company.

Overall revenues for Apple in the third quarter ending June 30, 2019 were $53.8 billion, up by 1% over the same quarter in 2018. The wearables segment which includes the Apple Home Pod experienced 48% growth in the third quarter of 2019 compared to the third quarter of 2018. “The growth of this segment was due to over the 50% growth in wearables [compared to third quarter of 2018],” stated Luca Maestri, senior vice president and CFO at Apple, in the earnings call.

In looking to the future Apple executives highlighted a handful of new products that are expected to create significant new revenue streams or impact on its business including the Apple Card, Apple Arcade and Apple TV Plus (its new streaming service). The latter two products are expected for the Fall of 2019.