Amazon Wallet, an Android app that Amazon.com developed to store loyalty and gift card information, was supposed to be the e-tail giant's entry point into mobile payments when the beta was launched six months ago. It wasn't — and earlier this week Amazon pulled Wallet from its app store and the Google Play store.
In an email statement to media outlets, Amazon wrote, "We've learned a great deal from the Amazon Wallet beta program and will look for ways to apply these lessons in the future as we continue to innovate on behalf of our customers."
According to TechCrunch, the Amazon Wallet beta seemed doomed from the outset. The app received an average 3.1 stars out of five among reviewers who complained about its limitations and performance issues. While the app could load loyalty and gift card information, it didn't have a feature to store credit and debit cards.
Mobile payments has become an area of increased interest among a wide variety of parties including Apple, Google, Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), PayPal, Starbucks and others. According to Forrester Research, via CNET, consumers are expected to conduct roughly $142 billion mobile payment transactions in 2019, up from $52 billion last year.
