In South Korea, where Samsung’s smartphones have a commanding market share lead, Samsung Pay has processed more than 1.5 million total transactions worth about USD 30 million in its first month in South Korea with about 600,000 subscribers.
The new service can be deployed on four models — the Galaxy S6, S6 edge, S6 edge plus and Note 5 — and its Gear S2 smartwatches, which will go on sale in October 2015, are also compatible with Samsung Pay. Samsung has partnered with MasterCard and Visa on the new service, which will be compatible with magnetic-strip card readers, while Apple Pay and Android Pay require retailers to install new equipment compatible with their next-generation near field communication (NFC) technology.
Samsung plans to expand the service to the UK, Spain and China soon. It will also likely adopt the payment feature to add value to its new low-to-mid-end smartphones next year. The company is also considering additional measures such as online payments to beef up the service.
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