Ah, this I didn't know, thanks.
>> Additionally if you support NFC, it isn't much more to support ICC as well.
It's different hardware. Historically the hardware has been more likely to support ICC/EMV and not NFC, but if the US is actually ever going to do a big EMV rollout then (were I the I the sort of person in charge of buying the equipment) it makes sense to go for both.
I'm sort-of interested in the Apple Pay thing now. (only sort-of, I find payments tech mostly to be incredibly boring). I've not worked on NFC/EMV contactless kernels but I understand that, unlike with the physical chip versions, you tend to need at least some amount of custom code for each card scheme. This has been put down to the schemes not pulling together quite so well this time around.
The USA is finally moving to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of using smart cards rather than the archaic mag-stripe, as the liability shift that took place in Europe 10 years ago is swinging into force now.
But it might be too late, and you might be right, the likes of ApplePay may well take over entirely in the USA.
Elsewhere, where Apple have less market share this may not be true, and the US may end up in a ghetto of 1, again, with its own market dynamics and tech that's not applicable in the rest of the world.