Twitter: Apple Pay mobile payment service is good for us
Twitter's head of global revenue argues that anything that gets people to buy things on their smartphone is good for the social-networking company.
- SABEW Best in Business 2011 Award for Breaking News Coverage, Eddie Award in 2020 for 5G coverage, runner-up National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award for culture analysis.
LAS VEGAS -- Twitter is a big fan of Apple's new mobile-payment service.
Apple earlier Tuesday unveiled Apple Pay, a new service that lets you use your iPhone 6 to pay at the register, utilizing its Passbook app to store credit-card information. It comes a day after Twitter introduced Twitter Commerce, it's own program that lets you see products and buy directly from the app with a "Buy" button. It's available on the iOS and Android mobile platforms.
Twitter Commerce works only on mobile, so is it a direct competitor to Apple? Not so, says Adam Bain, president of global revenue for the social-networking company.
"We're really excited Apple did that," Bain said in a keynote address at the CTIA wireless trade show today. "Anything that reduces the friction on making a purchase on this device is a good thing," referring to the smartphone.
In the end, Bain said, Twitter acts as a way for people to discover products. The actual avenue of making a purchase can change, he said.
Bain opened the door to integrating Twitter Commerce, which is still in trials in the US.
"When the time is right," he said on his willingness to work with Apple.