Technology
Visualizing the Rise of Digital Payment Adoption
Digital Payments: The Evolution of Currency
Over the last decade, the digital payments landscape has undergone a structural shift.
Consumer behaviors are changing—moving towards contactless and cashless transactions. Meanwhile, as the magnitude of COVID-19 grows, these trends have only accelerated.
Today’s infographic navigates the digital payments ecosystem, exploring its history and innovative technologies, and how it continues to grow as a solution of choice for trillions of dollars of transactions each year.
Digital Payments Timeline
The origins of digital payments began over 25 years ago with then 21 year-old entrepreneur Dan Kohn in Nashua, New Hampshire, who sold a CD over the internet via credit card payment.
- 1994: First online purchase is made
A CD of Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales is sold for $12.48 on NetMarket. - 1997: First mobile payments and first contactless payments
Coca-Cola installs two vending machines in Helsinki that accept payment by text message. - 1999: Paypal launches electronic money transfer service
Early on, PayPal’s user base grew nearly 10% daily. Tesla CEO Elon Musk and venture capitalist Peter Thiel were among its co-founders. - 2003: Alibaba launches Alipay in China
Today, the mobile payment platform has witnessed stunning growth — leveraging digital wallets accepted by merchants in over 50 countries and regions. - 2007: M-PESA creates the first payments system for mobile phones
Kenya-based M-PESA launched its mobile banking and microfinancing service. Today, it has over 37 million active users on its platform across Africa. - 2009: Bitcoin enables secure, untraceable payments
Satoshi Nakamoto develops the first decentralized payment network in the world. - 2013: WeChat Pay is rolled into the popular messaging platform
By 2018, it surpasses 800 million monthly active users. - 2014: Apple Pay launches
By 2023, over $2 trillion of mobile payment transactions could be authenticated by biometric technology.
As technological advances continue to unfold, advances in digital payment technologies are creating ripple effects globally.
Geographical Differences in Adoption
Unsurprisingly, the sheer volume of digital payments has continued to grow at a double-digit pace, now surpassing the $4.1 trillion mark.
How do cashless payments break down across different countries?
Country | Daily Average Volume of Cashless Payments | Average Annual Cashless Payments Per Person |
---|---|---|
Singapore | 13M | 831 |
South Korea | 77M | 547 |
Sweden | 15M | 529 |
Netherlands | 24M | 505 |
U.S. | 444M | 495 |
UK | 82M | 448 |
Canada | 40M | 393 |
Belgium | 12M | 372 |
France | 64M | 363 |
Switzerland | 7M | 299 |
Germany | 61M | 269 |
Russia | 95M | 237 |
Spain | 24M | 185 |
Brazil | 95M | 166 |
China | 543M | 142 |
Italy | 18M | 111 |
Turkey | 17M | 77 |
Indonesia | 30M | 42 |
Mexico | 14M | 40 |
India | 67M | 18 |
Source: BIS
Singapore has the highest number of cashless payments per individual, averaging 831 cashless payments annually. The country’s robust e-commerce market is supported by high-speed, reliable internet and a young, tech-savvy population.
With e-commerce spending accounting for about 6% of South Korea’s national GDP, it is another leading purveyor of a cashless society. Meanwhile, Sweden is projected to become a cashless nation as early as 2023.
Pivotal factors—including core infrastructure, consumer behavior and rising revenues—provide a glimpse into the rapidly changing payment horizon.
The Future of Digital Payments
As transactions rise, a number of other technological innovations could be instrumental to shaping the evolution of the digital payments industry:
- Messaging-app payments
Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and WeChat can leverage the reach of billions of users. - Voice-activated commands
Paying for gas, groceries, or retail via voice could soar. - Peer-to-peer (P2P) payments
Bank of America and Visa are investing heavily into P2P partnerships. - Cryptocurrencies
Over one million transactions take place daily on average. - Biometric payments
Smartphone biometric security features could spur traction across digital payments. - Facial recognition
May soon replace QR codes across retail, transit, and airports in China. - Crypto wallet adoption
Blockchain wallet users are predicted to soar to 200 million by 2030. - Hardware & in-store interfaces
Square, Stripe, and Clover are driving new mobile processing integrations.
The $4.1T digital payments ecosystem is facing a notable transition, catalyzed by a wave of global advancements and disruption. As the industry continues to widen its reach, consumers and investors alike can benefit from the shift towards a cashless economy.
Stocks
Ranked: America’s Largest Semiconductor Companies
This graphic visualizes the market capitalizations of America’s 15 largest semiconductor companies.

Ranking America’s Largest Semiconductor Companies
As our world moves further into an era of widespread digitization, few industries can be considered as important as semiconductors.
These components are found in almost everything we use on a daily basis, and the ability to produce them domestically has become a topic of national security. For example, in 2022 the Biden administration announced the CHIPS and Science Act, which aims to strengthen America’s position in everything from clean energy to artificial intelligence.
With this in mind, we’ve ranked the top 15 U.S. semiconductor companies by their market capitalizations.
Data and Highlights
The data we used to create this infographic is listed in the table below. Year-to-date (YTD) returns were included for additional context. Both metrics are as of May 30, 2023.
Rank | Company | Ticker | Market Cap (USD billions) | YTD Return |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Nvidia | NVDA | $992 | 180.2% |
2 | Broadcom | AVGO | $335 | 45.1% |
3 | AMD | AMD | $202 | 95.7% |
4 | Texas Instruments | TXN | $160 | 8.2% |
5 | Qualcomm | QCOM | $129 | 8.2% |
6 | Intel | INTC | $125 | 12.2% |
7 | Applied Materials | AMAT | $115 | 41.2% |
8 | Analog Devices | ADI | $89 | 9.2% |
9 | Lam Research | LRCX | $85 | 52.1% |
10 | Micron Technology | MU | $78 | 42.3% |
11 | Snyopsys | SNPS | $71 | 45.4% |
12 | KLA | KLAC | $63 | 21.8% |
13 | Marvell Technology Group | MRVL | $54 | 76.2% |
14 | Microchip Technology | MCHP | $42 | 11.2% |
15 | ON Semiconductor | ON | $36 | 36.3% |
At the top is Nvidia, which became America’s newest $1 trillion company on Tuesday, May 30th. Shares pulled back slightly over the day and Nvidia closed at $992 billion. Over the past decade, Nvidia has transformed from a gaming-focused graphics card producer to a global leader in AI and data center chips.
In third and sixth place are two of America’s most well known chipmakers, AMD and Intel. These longtime rivals are moving in opposite trajectories, with AMD shares climbing 770% over the past five years, and Intel shares falling 47%. One reason for this is the data center segment, in which AMD appears to be stealing market share from Intel.
Further down the list we see Applied Materials in seventh, and Lam Research in ninth. Both firms specialize in semiconductor manufacturing equipment and thus play an important role in the industry’s supply chain.
Trade War Impacts
As tensions between the U.S. and China escalate, chipmakers are becoming increasingly entangled in geopolitical conflict.
In October 2022, the Biden administration introduced new export controls aimed at blocking China’s access to semiconductors produced with U.S. equipment. This impacted several companies in our top 15 list, including Lam Research and Applied Materials.
Shortly after the export controls were announced, Lam Research said it expected to lose upwards of $2.5 billion in annual revenues.
We lost some very profitable customers in the China region, and that’s going to persist, obviously.
– Doug Bettinger, CFO, Lam Research
In response, China announced in May 2023 that it would no longer allow America’s largest memory chipmaker, Micron, to sell its products to “critical national infrastructure operators”.
This is not the first time Micron has been involved in a controversy with China. In 2018, the firm alleged that Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit, a Chinese state-owned company, had solicited a Micron employee to steal specifications for memory chips. The U.S. Department of Commerce imposed export restrictions on Fujian Jinhua as a result.
Chipmakers on both sides of the Pacific will be closely watching as competition between these two countries heats up.
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