Samsung Pay launched last year in South Korea and the U.S. In the six months that it has been available, some five million registered users have processed over 500 million dollars in transactions. The company is now getting ready to bring its mobile payment platform to at least seven more countries this year. Samsung first announced the expansion on Friday and mentioned it again today during its latest Samsung Unpacked event.
“Since its introduction last year, Samsung Pay has changed the way people pay and use their smartphones,” said Injong Rhee, EVP and Head of R&D, Software and Services of Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics. “We’ve already seen significant consumer adoption and we continue to see great momentum. Our aim is to expand Samsung Pay to even more locations around the world, and our customers should expect to see more features in the year to come.”
Samsung Pay will first expand to China in March. It will then roll out in Canada as well as Australia, Brazil, Singapore, Spain and the U.K. later in the year. Specific timelines were not not provided except for China with Samsung saying only that Samsung Pay’s global expansion will will take place “over the next few months.”
Rumours had also suggested that the mobile payment service would be headed to Russia but it appears that this may not happen until next year or later if at all.
Samsung Pay is also adding support for American Express, China UnionPay, MasterCard, and Visa in 2016. It remains to be seen what Canadian banks will support Samsung Pay.
Samsung Pay is currently supported on the Galaxy S6, S6 edge, S6 edge+ and Note 5. 2016 models of both the Galaxy A5 and A7 will also support it as will the newly announced Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge. Support for the Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch is also coming sometime this year.
Source : Samsung