The map above shows which credit card company is the most popular in each country based on Google search data from Google Trends. It does not reflect the number of cards issued, nor transaction volume, simply the volume of searches for each company.
Overall, Google was able to provide data for 168 countries. Of those countries, Visa is the clear winner, being the most popular credit card company in 123 countries. Surprisingly, American Express (AMEX) is the most popular in 23 countries including the UK and US. Finally, Mastercard was the most popular company in 22 countries including Canada and Australia.
However, when you look at data on the biggest credit card networks, the data looks slightly different. Visa is the largest creit card issuer in the United States. According to CreditCards.com data, Visa has 304 million cards in circulation in the US and 545 million cards in circulation outside the US. Total transaction volume in the US was $1.2 trillion USD in 2014.
Mastercard has 191 million cards in circulation in the US and 576 million cards in circulation outside the US, which actually places it ahead of Visa globally (excluding US). However, US transaction volume is only $607 billion, around half of Visa’s total.
Finally, American Express is much smaller than the two giants with only 54.9 million cards in circulation in the US and another 57.3 million cards in the rest of the world. However, due to the affluence of their average customer, their transaction volume in the US is slightly higher than Mastercard’s at around $668 billion.
So why is Amex so popular in many countries, given it’s much smaller size?
This can likely attributed to the way Google collects search trends data. Data was for total searches for each company. And while Visa and Mastercard specialise in credit cards, American Express offers a variety of other services including insurance, travellers cheques and other travel and rewards services.
They also issue their own cards as opposed to Visa and Mastercard who issue their cards via banks, building societies, retailers and other financial services companies.
Also it should be noted that while we looked at China Unionpay, Discover Card and other credit card issuers, they were not included as there were no country where they were the most popular brand.
The reason why Unionpay was not the most popular brand in China is due to the fact data comes from Google, which only has around a 9% share of the Chinese search market and likely skews towards expats and those with an international focus.
The full list of countries by credit card company popularity is below:
The 123 countries where Visa is the most popular credit card company
- Albania
- Algeria
- Andorra
- Angola
- Argentina
- Armenia
- Austria
- Azerbaijan
- Bahrain
- Bangladesh
- Barbados
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Benin
- Bhutan
- Bolivia
- Bosnia Herzegovina
- Botswana
- Brunei
- Bulgaria
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Cambodia
- Cameroon
- Colombia
- Congo (Democratic Republic)
- Congo
- Cuba
- Cyprus
- Djibouti
- Dominican Republic
- Ecuador
- Egypt
- El Salvador
- Ethiopia
- Fiji
- France
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Germany
- Ghana
- Greece
- Guatemala
- Guinea
- Guyana
- Haiti
- Honduras
- Indonesia
- Iran
- Iraq
- Ireland
- Israel
- Jamaica
- Japan
- Jordan
- Kazakhstan
- Kenya
- Kosovo
- Kuwait
- Kyrgyzstan
- Laos
- Lebanon
- Liberia
- Libya
- Luxembourg
- Macedonia
- Madagascar
- Malaysia
- Mali
- Malta
- Mauritania
- Mauritius
- Montenegro
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Myanmar
- Namibia
- Nepal
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Nicaragua
- Niger
- Oman
- Pakistan
- Palestinian territories
- Panama
- Papua New Guinea
- Paraguay
- Peru
- Philippines
- Poland
- Portugal
- Qatar
- Romania
- Russia
- Saudi Arabia
- Senegal
- Serbia
- Sierra Leone
- Slovakia
- Somalia
- South Korea
- Spain
- Sudan
- Suriname
- Syria
- Taiwan
- Tajikistan
- Tanzania
- Thailand
- Timor-Leste
- Togo
- Trinidad & Tobago
- Tunisia
- Turkey
- Turkmenistan
- Uganda
- United Arab Emirates
- Uruguay
- Uzbekistan
- Vietnam
- Yemen
- Zambia
The 23 countries where American Express (AMEX) is the most popular credit card company
- Afghanistan
- Bahamas
- Belize
- Bermuda
- China
- Costa Rica
- Croatia
- French Guiana
- Georgia
- Hong Kong
- Iceland
- India
- Italy
- Latvia
- Mexico
- Mongolia
- Puerto Rico
- Singapore
- South Africa
- Sri Lanka
- United Kingdom
- United States
- Venezuela
The 22 countries where Mastercard is the most popular credit card company
- Australia
- Brazil
- Canada
- Chile
- Côte d’Ivoire
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- Greenland
- Hungary
- Lithuania
- Malawi
- Moldova
- Nigeria
- Norway
- Rwanda
- Slovenia
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Ukraine
- Zimbabwe
Use of this map: You are free to use this map on your own website BUT YOU MUST provide linked attribution back to this blog post and/or MerchantMachine.co.uk. Map created using MapChart.net.
For more see our guide to the best card machines for small business in the UK.
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