A smartphone is much more valuable, it offers richer data and capabilities than a discount card. An app can access tonnes of 'free' information provided by the

A smartphone is much more valuable, it offers richer data and capabilities than a discount card. An app can access tonnes of 'free' information provided by the OS (model, make, package list), as well as logging each and every tap/interaction and accessing personal information (contacts lists, location data, device identifiers you can trace across datasets) You can see which offers people engage with most, how often they open your app, well timed push notifications and a reliance on that app. They can also purchase data from that smartphone and have huge data silos to perform studies on. An App provides access to a human being constantly, whereas a discount card is a stateless entity in a wallet that never gets used; it's unlikely someone loses their smartphone, it's a prized possession. Quite honestly, discount cards are probably quite worthless vs smartphone data and the richness of what you can get. I am surprised they are even still used/offered these days (I know of supermarkets that just have apps now).