Apple Pay hit the market in 2014, changing the payments industry forever. In fact, while consumers had originally been slow to embrace tokenized digital wallets, the market continues to steadily grow, and industry titans such as Google, Samsung and Microsoft have since jumped in with both feet.

So just how are tokenized wallets fairing among consumers today, how has the market changed, and what does the future hold?

According to research firm eMarketer, 36.2 million people will use smartphones instead of cash or plastic to pay when they visit a store this year – representing a 60.5 percent annual increase. By 2018, the firm expects more than one in four U.S. smartphone owners to use mobile payments.

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