Author: JT

Samsung Pay is set to come to the United States in the coming months

Samsung Pay, Samsung’s new mobile payments service, is expected to launch in the United States in the coming months. The service was first launched in South Korea in 2015, where Samsung has been testing the service and fine tuning its features. Samsung Pay is set to compete with other mobile payments services in the U.S., particularly those coming from Google and Apple. The company is confident, however, that the service will appeal to U.S. consumers, especially as new features are being introduced.

New mobile payments service will be available on a variety of mobile devices

Recently, Samsung announced that its mobile payments service will be available on non-flagship devices, which are not equipped with NFC technology. NFC has become the backbone of mobile commerce, allowing digital information to be transmitted over short distances. In the past, the lack of NFC-enabled mobile devices made it difficult for consumers to make mobile payments, but device makers have brought numerous devices equipped with NFC technology to the global market, expanding the reach of mobile payments.

Samsung Pay will support Magnetic Secure Transmission technology

Samsung Pay is, of course, not a copy of other payment services. The service features support of Magnetic Secure Transmission, which is why consumers do not need NFC-enabled devices to make use of it. This technology allows Samsung Pay to work in a way similar to existing debit and credit cards. Samsung believes that this feature can be expanded to make mobile payments more convenient for consumers throughout the United States.

Security will continue to be a challenge for those involved in mobile payments

One of the challenges Samsung will have to overcome to find success in the U.S. is security. Many consumers have shown caution regarding mobile payments because of security risks, as they fear that their financial information may be exploited by malicious parties. Samsung, and other companies, have been working to address security issues, particularly through the use of biometric technology, which leverages biological information, such as a fingerprint, to secure consumer information.

eMarketer has now released new data that has show that consumers in the U.S. aren’t keeping up with the globe.

Some of the latest data issued by eMarketer has revealed that American consumers purchased an estimated total of $48 billion of products and services over m-commerce channels throughout 2015.

That represents an increase of 32 percent when compared to the same time in 2014.

Throughout 2015, m-commerce shopping made up an estimated 22 percent of all online retail shopping, according to the eMarketer figures for the United States. That represents a rise of 3 percentage points over the same figure from 2014. While that does appear to be a strong figure, it also shows that mobile shopping is being used more broadly in other parts of the world. For example, in South Korea, 46 percent of all online retail sales were conducted over smartphones or tablets. That represented 5.1 percent of the whole retail sales total for 2015.

Similar m-commerce figures were seen in other parts of the world, showing that the U.S. is lagging behind.

In China, for example, 50 percent of all online shopping sales and nearly 8 percent of retail purchases occurred over smartphones and tablets throughout 2015, according to the estimates from eMarketer.

Comparatively, in the U.S., consumers continue to use their mobile devices primarily for informing themselves about products as opposed to actually making a purchase. In the United States, under 2 percent of total retail sales are conducted by smartphone or tablet. Moreover, even though there have been some major mobile payments players that have entered that market – such as Apple and Google – only 14 percent of Americans said they would be interested in purchasing something over their mobile devices during the holiday season, said statistics from Bankrate.

Even specifically among Millennials, the demographic most likely to use their smartphones for activities such as shopping, only 20 percent said they had intended to use m-commerce for holiday purchases either online or through wallet apps that would be used in a retail brick and mortar location. It remains clear that the United States is a market facing considerable barriers to mobile shopping.