The growing number of people using their smartphones to pay for products, both online and in real world retail outlets, has led to a number of big companies attempting to get in on the act.

Now a new report has looked at how the market stands at the moment, just a few months after incumbent online payments giant, PayPal, has had new competition arise in the form of smartphone maker, Apple and its Apple Pay platform.

The study from Retale revealed that over a third of people have now taken advantage of a mobile payments service, which is twice as many as had done so in a similar report conducted back in 2012.

Over half of respondents said that they are going to make mobile payments in the run-up to Christmas 2014, although it is not all good news for firms like PayPal, as a quarter revealed that they find using cash in-store or payment cards for safe shopping online more convenient for the time being.

Thirty per cent said that they are not just put off mobile payments as a result of the convenience element, but also due to concerns about the security of using these platforms.

Younger generations of consumers tend to be more interested in using mobile payment services than those born prior to 1980, with this group of millennial shoppers having a 17 per cent higher penetration rate than the national average.

When it comes to which company is capturing the majority of the market, PayPal was cited by 51 per cent of those who are already using mobile payments, with Apple taking 10 per cent of consumers, for the time being. The proliferation of Apple Pay seems inevitable because of the power of the company’s brand and the popularity of its smartphones.