The percentage of payments made with a mobile phone in UK stores has jumped from 13 in Q3 2016 to 56 in Q3 2018 an analysis of 190m card transactions has shown Compared to this time last year the volume of contactless mobile payments has increased by 60 Cardlytics logo For payments under the 30 contactless payments limit the number of transactions accounted for by mobile payments increased from 18 in Q3 2016 to 46 in Q3 2017 and then 7 in Q3 2018 the analysis by Cardlytics found The biggest beneficiaries of growing mobile payments are quick-service merchants who have introduced contactless payment methods the company says This includes quick-service-restaurants 113 coffee shops 11 public transport 11 and bars and pubs 925 This reflects that mobile payments are used more readily at merchants that people visit on a daily basis and wish to pay more expediently while less popular amongst bigger-ticket one off purchases London is by far the biggest adopter of mobile pay accounting for 7 of payments less than 30 and 57 of all transactions at least 2 higher than any other region Cardlytics adds Outside of London east of England and the rest of the south east have been the fastest movers with 33 and 32 of all transactions respectively carried out via Apple Google or Android pay Yorkshire ranks fourth with 29 The huge growth in contactless payments has been well documented and were now seeing mobile payments making a big contribution to that growth often at the expense of cash says Duncan Smith commercial director at Cardlytics