Yes mostly. The cell phone wallets were the convenience difference that caused merchants to upgrade their POS systems to support contactless. Before that there just wasn't much reason for merchants to change their existing card infrastructure. Now customers feel inconvenienced if they have to use a credit card.
I find it interesting because in my lifetime the UK went from magstripe (falling back to a carbon copy of the card with signature) to chip and pin, to contactless, and now smartphone. A lot of upgrading while the US just skipped it.
