Peru
Credit Cards Dominate Peru's Cashless Payments
Population
Peru had an estimated population of 32,971,854 as of the middle of 2020, according to UN data. Based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest UN data, Peru had a population of 33,252,306 as of February 11, 2021, with 79.1% living in urban areas, mainly Lima. The median age of the population is 31.0 years. Peru had approximately 19.90 million active internet users as of January 2021, according to Data Reportal.
E-commerce
The low internet, banking, and smartphone penetration rate means Peru faces a high challenge to establish an e-commerce market. The average annual revenue per paying user in Peru amounted to $472 in 2020, according to the PPRO Report. Most cross-border e-commerce purchases by Peruian shoppers are high of 77% in 2020, but information on top countries are still unknown.
Payment preferences
In 2020, most Peruvians shoppers prefer to pay with cards, followed by cash, bank transfers, and other payment methods. For cashless payments, the three big players are Visa and Mastercard.
Economy
According to IMF data, Peru had a gross domestic product of $230.74 billion in 2019, which declined to $195.76 billion in 2020 due to the pandemic. As the economy continues to recover, Peru's GDP is expected to expand to about $210.73 billion in 2021.
Internet & mobile phone trends
According to Statista, nearly 58% of children aged 6 to 11 years old were internet users as of 2020. According to Datareportal, there were 19.90 million internet users in January 2021, which had increased by about 2.4 million (+13%) from 2020, with an internet penetration rate of 50.0% in January 2021. Meanwhile, 62% of the population had smartphones in 2020.
Banking
According to the PPRO Report, only 43% of Peruvians had bank accounts in 2020, and only 11.6% of them were credit card holders.