One in Four Starbucks Transactions Now Use Mobile Payments

Less than a year after Starbucks launched an app that allows mobile payments, it has hosted 26 million such transactions on iOS, BlackBerry and Android. Roughly one in four Starbucks card transactions is now executed using contactless  mobile payment.


In the nine weeks after it was released, there were three million transactions. But in the past nine weeks, there have been six million, says Adam Brotman, SVP and general manager of Starbucks. One in Four Starbucks Transactions Now Done Via Mobile:


But mobile vastly lags the Starbucks card where it comes to volume. About  $110 million has been reloaded to customers’ Starbucks cards using mobile top up, Brotman says. Some $2.4 billion was loaded onto Starbucks cards overall in 2011.


So 25 percent use mobile payment, but only about 4.5 percent of card top-ups have been conducted on the mobile device. For whatever reason, it appears people are more comfortable using PCs to refresh their accounts, instead of reloading directly on the mobile. 


For those of you who have done both, there might be a simple reason. It is just easier to reload on a larger screen than on a smart phone.