CUPERTINO, CA- Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) The Apple Pay system is expanding its branches to KFC, Starbucks and Chili.
Apple Pay, the popular service that allows users to make any kind of payment using only their smartphones, strives to expand its network and is now seeking collaboration with Starbucks, KFC and Chili’s.
Particularly for Starbucks, the service will roll out by the end of the year and will be applied to roughly 7,500 stores in 2016, as the worldwide known coffee chain mentioned in a comment.
As for KFC and Chili’s Grill & Bar, they will also get the service next year, according to Jennifer Bailey, the Apple vice president in charge of the service who spoke at the Code/Mobile conference on Thursday.
This should boost the service’s much-needed spread since the company is dealing with lack of acceptance by numerous retail stores due to its slow roll out.
For the record, a year has already passed since Apple Pay has had its debut, and as the research firm Aite Group confirms, it only accounts for 1% of retail transactions in the U.S.
On the other hand, Starbucks’ mobile payment accounts for 20% of transactions in U.S, which makes sense given that the coffee chain has announced it hopes to provide to its customers all kinds of payments available. So we can expect Apple Pay to flourish through this collaboration.
Then we’ve got Brinker International Inc. which runs Chili’s and plans to bring the payment system to 930 stores nationwide starting this spring.
And last but not least Brands Inc., the owner of KFC has not made any comments on the news yet, and hasn’t responded to the request to make any comments either, so some may get a bit more skeptical.
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