Apple Pay Likely to Launch in India by End of 2026

The Cupertino-based tech giant's digital payment tool, Apple Pay, is getting ready to debut in India this year. By the end of 2026, the service—which is currently offered in 89 markets worldwide—is anticipated to enter India. A number of governmental licences are still required for the Tim Cook-led company, which has been attempting to join the Indian market for some time. Like in 50 other markets, Apple Pay is probably going to include the "tap to pay" option in India. Apple must bargain with major card issuers on the amount of money they must pay the tech giant for the payment gateway. Let’s explore the roll-out plan.

What is Apple Pay and How it Works?

Apple Payment Services, a division of Apple Inc., offers the service known as Apple Pay. According to a number of media sources, Apple plans to introduce the idea to India in 2026 by collaborating with banks, regulators, and card networks. Customers can use this service to store their debit and credit cards in the Apple Wallet. They can perform contactless payments using NFC (near field communication) by simply tapping their device on PoS (point of sale) terminals when a card has been saved and configured as the default. Paying using an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, or Apple Vision Pro is thought to be simple, safe, and private with Apple Pay.

Apple Pay is exclusive to Apple devices, in contrast to other digital payment services like Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm, and others. Debit and credit cards are not currently able to be loaded into Apple Wallet in India. According to a representative of a payments provider, the concept is for customers to save a card on their device and use it to make contactless purchases at retail establishments. Since there are already newer technologies in place, including device tokenisation for more seamless payments, Payment Aggregators (PAs) would wish to support it.

India’s Growing Digital Network Allured Apple Pay

Apple Pay’s introduction into India will align with the expansion of digital payment methods, including contactless credit and debit cards, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), digital wallets such as prepaid payment instruments (PPIs), and others. The US-based IT giant may consider joining this market in the future, because UPI is widely used in India for digital payments. The launch of Apple Pay in India coincides with a notable increase in Apple's market share in that nation.

According to International Data Corporation (IDC) data, the company had its largest quarterly shipments in India in the third quarter of 2025, hitting 5 million units and taking the fourth spot in the market for the first time. According to a media source, Apple Pay is unlikely to file for a TPAP (third-party application provider) permission because it deals with an entirely separate payment system and requires a continual stream of regulatory authorisations. To facilitate foreign payments for Indian merchants, fintech companies Cashfree Payments and Razorpay merged with Apple Pay as a payment option in 2025.