Hotly competitive market dominated by Alipay, Tenpay
South Korea-based technology giant Samsung Electronics Co will take Samsung Pay to the Chinese mainland in March, a month after rival Apple Pay, media reports said over the weekend.
The company plans to hit Australia, Brazil, Singapore, Spain and the UK later this year and also further expand to Canada, the company said Saturday in a statement on its website. No time frame was given for these markets.
Samsung noted that its payment service now supports eligible credit and debit cards from more than 70 major and regional banks.
When Apple Pay launched its service in China on January 18, Samsung Pay announced that it will begin public testing in the Chinese market on Wednesday this week, according to the software update notification many Chinese users received.
Chinese banks that will support Samsung Pay include Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, China CITIC Bank and China Guangfa Bank, domestic news portal -jiemian.com reported Thursday.
Samsung Pay will be the first Android-based payment service to enter the domestic payment service market, said Li Chao, an analyst at the Beijing-based iResearch Consulting Group.
But Samsung Pay has no obvious edge over rival Apple Pay, which launched its mobile wallet service earlier in China, Li told the Global Times on Sunday.
"When other foreign payment services head to China, it seems like they are just following Apple Pay's lead," Li said.
Unlike Apple Pay and Android Pay, which only use near field communication (NFC) technology, Samsung Pay also supports the legacy magnetic secure transmission terminals that are usually found at smaller retailers, new phone information website www.phonearena.com said Saturday.
It means Samsung Pay is much more likely to work in places where Apple Pay and Android Pay won't, according to www.phonearena.com.
But "that does not have much meaning as Chinese users are more concerned with access to NFC terminals," Li noted.
The market is dominated by Alipay and Tenpay, the payment arms of the nation's two biggest Internet companies, Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings. As a result, Li said, Samsung Pay will face tougher competition than Apple Pay, as many other domestic cellphone brands using the Android operating system will also rush into the market, such as those offered by Huawei and Xiaomi.
"I would like to try Samsung Pay when it comes to China because I have used Samsung cellphones for many years," a white-collar worker surnamed Chen in Shanghai told the Global Times on Sunday.
"But I'm not sure whether it is as convenient as Alipay or Tenpay," she said.
