Apple Pay Launches in India Next Month with Limited Addressable Market

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is planning to launch its Apple Pay service in India next month, starting with Axis Bank credit cards.

The Reserve Bank of India rule change allowing biometric authentication for card payments has made it possible for Apple to offer its tokenized-payment system without creating an India-specific workaround.

The phased rollout with Axis Bank will give Apple a meaningful group of initial users despite being the fourth-largest issuer in India, with approximately 16.26 million active credit cards in July.

However, Apple Pay's addressable market is limited by India's dominant Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system, which accounts for around 84% of digital-payment volume and serves over 550 million users.