PayPal is most popular digital payment option in Asia: study

In the BNPL space, Klarna, Atome, and Afterpay are the region’s most popular choices.

PayPal edged past Visa to clinch the title of most popular digital payment option in Asia, according to a study by Merchant Machine.

PauPal reportedly holds a market share of 23.75% in Asia, higher than the 19% market share held by Visa in the region. Mastercard holds a 9.48% market share. Apple Pay (7.65%) and American Express (7.64%) reportedly rounded out the top 5.

Whilst there were no buy now pay later firms that breached the top 5, the service is undoubtedly gaining steam. Globally, the market for BNPL is valued at $23.2b in 2022.

Swedish company Klarna controls the largest market share worldwide, at 53.43%, and is the most used BNPL service in 50 countries. 

In Asia, brand popularity was more varied. Merchant Machine reports that Klarna was the top pick in China and Indonesia, while Atome is more used in the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. Fundiin is more used in Vietnam, while Afterpay dominates the BNPL markets of Australia and New Zealand.

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“Founded in 2014, Afterpay dominates in Australia and New Zealand — where it’s estimated that over half of all domains that offer a BNPL option use Afterpay — but it’s increasingly popular in the U.S. and the UK too, where a legal dispute means that Brits will know the brand as Clearpay,” the report noted.

Globally, Afterpay holds a 22.45% market share, whilst other players barely breach over 10% of the market share.

Data used in the study are sourced from BuiltWith, a website that tracks the payment technologies used by the top one million most visited websites worldwide.