Apple Pay has many mountains to climb before it can become the world's top payment option

A few days ago we showed you some video ads that Apple has put together for a promo campaign it is running for Apple Pay, its mobile payment service. Apple does keep .15% of the value of a transaction that has been paid for with Apple Pay. That means if you use your iPhone or Apple Watch to pay for a $100 purchase, Apple collects the princely sum of 15 cents. But don't worry about Apple; because Apple Pay is so often employed, one analyst says the company will take in $4 billion from the feature this year.

And Apple feels that there is so much potential upside to Apple Pay that it is worth it to spend the money promoting the service. Hence, the new promotion campaign for the feature. According to data from the U.K.'s Merchant Machine (via AppleInsider), Apple Pay is only the fifth most-used payment method in North America based on the number of transactions. Visa is number one on the continent with a market share of 15.08% followed by MasterCard (10.98%), PayPal (10.70%), American Express (9.97%), and Apple Pay (9.22%).

Globally, PayPal is number one with a market share of 20.53% with Visa and MasterCard second and third with market shares of 15.67% and 10.49% respectively. American Express is fourth (8.77% market share) with Apple Pay rounding out the top five (7.37%). Other tech-related firms that appear in the global rankings include Amazon Payments (6th place, 6.04% share), and Google Pay (8th place, 4.30% share).

The best showing for Apple Pay is in Africa where Apple's mobile payment service is third with a 9.49% market share. PayPal (25.06%) is on top on the continent with Visa next (17.14%). Interestingly, in Africa, both Apple Pay and Amazon Payments (9.23%) are ahead of Master Card's 8.42% share. And in Asia, Apple Pay is fourth with 7.65% of transactions on that continent.

So Apple is hoping to pump up usage of Apple Pay by using its new tagline, "Pay the Apple way."It also is promoting the service on the social media platform that used to be called X and on other online sites as well. Mobile payment services are a convenience since you can simply whip out your phone or flick your wrist (assuming you're wearing a smartwatch) to make a payment instead of struggling to take a credit card out of your wallet.