Chile
Chile Cashless Payments Continue to Gain Traction
Population
Chile had an estimated population of 19,116,201 as of the middle of 2020, according to UN data. Based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest UN data, Chile had a population of 19,221,632 as of February 22, 2021, with 84.8% living in urban areas, mainly Santiago. The median age of the population is 35.3 years. Chile had approximately 15.78 million active internet users as of January 2021, according to Data Reportal.
E-commerce
The relatively low internet, banking, and smartphone penetration rate means Chile still faces quite challenges to establish an e-commerce market. The average annual revenue per paying user in Chile amounted to $913 in 2020, according to the PPRO Report. Most cross-border e-commerce purchases by Chilean shoppers are of high 69%, but there’s no data regarding the country.
Payment preferences
In 2020, most Chilean shoppers prefer to pay with cards, followed by cash, bank transfers, and other payment methods. For cashless payments, the three big players are Visa, American Express, and Mastercard.
Economy
According to IMF data, Chile had a gross domestic product of $282.25 billion in 2019, which declined to $245.41 billion in 2020 due to the pandemic. As the economy continues to recover, Chile's GDP is expected to expand to about $280.17 billion in 2021.
Internet & mobile phone trends
According to Statista, the 21.5% majority of internet users in the country were aged 25-34 years old as of 2020. According to Datareportal, there were 15.78 million internet users in January 2021, which had increased by about 108 thousand (+0.7%) from 2020, with an internet penetration rate of 82.3% in January 2020. Meanwhile, 72% of the population had smartphones in 2020.
Banking
According to the PPRO Report, 74% of Chileans had bank accounts in 2020, but only 29.8% of them were credit card holders.