• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, July 9, 2015

Mobile wallets are just not hot.

Despite all the promises of being able to more easily use a smartphone to pay along with all the promotions and advertising to get people to adopt mobile payments, the enthusiasm is still not there.

After all of this, only 13% of smartphone owners have a digital wallet on their device, according to a new Gallup report. Viewed another way, 87% of smartphone owners don’t.

It gets worse. Of the 13% who have a digital wallet, 76% have never used it or almost never used it to make a purchase from a retailer in the past 30 days.

The study comprised an online survey of a panel of 11,000 U.S. adults combined with a survey of a panel of 6,000 about a month later.

But there is some potential future light tunnel-wise. Of those using a digital wallet, 11% of men and 11% of millennials use it every or almost every time if they can to make a purchase.

As in various other aspects of mobile commerce, security concerns are at the top of the list of consumer concerns. Here are the primary reasons consumes are unlikely to use a digital wallet in the next 12 months:

• 55% -- Security concerns (hacking, losing phone)
• 21% -- Don’t know enough about digital wallets to make a decision
• 14% -- Don’t see any benefit of using a digital wallet over just credit cards
• 5% -- Don’t think digital wallets are accepted at enough places to be useful or worth it

Interestingly, despite all the hype and media attention to Apple Pay, Google holds the top spot in terms of mobile wallets being used.

Of those who have digital wallets, 35% have Google Wallet, 24% Apple Pay and 22% PayPal, according to the Gallup tally.

Though at 13% digital wallet penetration, I’m not sure it even matters who’s in front.

The mobile payments industry has much more to worry about that that.