Starbucks customers get voice ordering as mobile orders and payments continue to grow NFCW [Video]

US consumers can now place orders from coffee giant Starbucks by speaking into the Starbucks iOS mobile app or to Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa. The move comes as the company reveals that mobile orders made up 7% of all its US transactions in the last quarter, with mobile payments now accounting for 27%.

“Mobile Order & Pay had a banner quarter, representing more than 7% of total transactions — double the figure from Q1 last year,” Starbucks’ Kevin Johnson told investors during the company’s first quarter earnings call. “We now have nearly 1,200 stores with 20% or more Mobile Order & Pay transactions at peak compared to only 13 stores one year ago.”

Chinese internet giant Tencent’s WeChat Pay mobile payments platform now also represents 20% of total transactions in China, Johnson added, following its launch across 2,500 Starbucks locations in December 2016.

The My Starbucks Barista …