Starbucks has been at the forefront when it comes to innovation in last few years.  One of them is Mobile Payments.

Less than a year after Starbucks launched an app that allows mobile payments, it has hosted 26 million such transactions on iOS, BlackBerry and Android. He adds that New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago and San Jose, Calif., are the top cities by volume for mobile purchases, according to  Adam Brotman, SVP and general manager of Starbucks.

But the mobile-payments initiative has built momentum recently. One in four Starbucks card transactions is now executed via a Starbucks card and a portion of those are done through mobile.

The app has grown from a simple gift card frontend for the iPhone to a more versatile product.

It would not be wrong to say that Starbucks is going in the right direction with technologies like NFC, Google Wallet, Isis expected to gain popularity.

When asked why mobile payments seem to have caught on at Starbucks, Brotman said he thought convenience was a major factor. “It’s a faster, easier way to pay,” he said. “We not only developed the feature, but we also rolled out scanners in our locations.”

The Coffee chain has embraced mobile technology on a large scale in the year 2011. Among other recent highlights was the company’s Cup Magic augmented reality app.