Mobile Wallets Spotlight: Brazil

Last year, investments into fintech companies in Latin America more than tripled and for a good reason: only 56% of consumers in the region have a traditional bank account. The new wave of e-commerce growth in Latin America is largely driven by mobile wallets and real-time payment schemes.

Brazil is the largest e-commerce market in Latin America, with $21 billion transactions in 2020 supported by a population of over 200 million. An emerging market with relatively high smartphone penetration, Brazil has become the fintech hotspot of Latin America.

While mobile wallet penetration is already high, this is projected to reach 86.6% by 2025, with 197 million mobile wallet users. This user growth is projected to dramatically impact transactions, increasing by more than 5x to 8.5 billion by 2025, at a value of $146 billion:

• Mobile wallet users: 76M in 2020, forecast to grow to 197M by 2025
• Mobile wallet ownership: 35% of the population, 86% by 2025
• Mobile wallet transaction volume: 1.5B transactions, 8.5B transactions by 2025
• Mobile wallet transaction value: $26B, $146B by 2025

In addition to mobile wallets, Pix (the Brazilian central bank’s real-time payments scheme) also launched in November 2020 and is already being widely adopted by consumers.

Brazil’s competitive mobile wallet landscape: PicPay, MercadoPago, RappiPay, Pix

Brazil is a country with a robust and growing mobile payments market. PicPay, launched in 2013, has become the most popular mobile wallet in Brazil. Challengers to PicPay include regional powerhouses Mercado Libre, the e-commerce Marketplace of Latin America, and its mobile wallet MercadoPago, as well as Rappi, the food delivery service of Latin America, and RappiPay.

The recent launch of Pix is certainly worth keeping an eye on, especially to see if consumers prefer to use it as a direct method of payment or a top-up mechanism for mobile wallets.

We forecast the following user growth for mobile wallets in Brazil over the next few years:

Want to launch mobile wallet payments in Brazil? Conclusions

Brazil is the biggest e-commerce and mobile payments market in Latin America, with over 200 million residents and $21 billion in 2020 e-commerce revenues. Brazil is becoming a highly competitive mobile payments market as MercadoPago, RappiPay and real-time payment scheme Pix will challenge PicPay.

Mobile wallet penetration and usage are set to explode in Brazil, with user penetration reaching 86.6% (197M consumers) of Brazilians by 2025

For merchants looking to grow their revenue in Brazil, integrating mobile wallets & real-time payments to reach online consumers is crucial. If you are looking to launch mobile wallets in Brazil and other emerging markets through one turnkey integration, get in touch.

For more data on mobile wallet payments in Brazil and 20+ other countries, download our Mobile Wallets Report 2021.