Samsung Pay Is Off To A Flying Start

Samsung Pay was used for $30 million (£20m) worth of transactions – equivalent to nearly $1 million (£660,000) a day – during its first month of operation in the company’s homeland of South Korea.

The service is set to launch in the UK and other European markets later this year, following a launch in the US on September 29, and is available to owners of a Samsung Galaxy S6 or S6 Edge device through a software update.

The newly announced S6 Edge+ and Note 5 will come with the service pre-loaded.

Great response

“Although the details on Samsung Pay usage are constantly being updated, the response we’ve received so far has been beyond our expectations,” said Injong Rhee,  global head of Samsung Pay.

“We knew Samsung Pay would be a game-changer in the mobile payments industry and now with the user data, we are seeing the greater impact it is having on consumer behaviour and on the lifestyle of our customers.”

First announced at Mobile World Congress (MWC) back in March, Samsung Pay marks the company’s first full entry into the mobile payments market

Rather than just using just Near Field Communication (NFC), as seen in systems such as Apple Pay, Samsung’s system also packs in magnetic secure transmission, which mimics magnetic-strip payment systems, meaning any retailer that currently accepts credit, debit or NFC payments can adopt the technology

Samsung estimates that Apple Pay reaches only ten percent of merchants in the US alone and believes there is a huge opportunity to be taken advantage of.

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