Category: Featured News

Walmart mobile payments roll out in 19 new states.

Walmart Pay is available in approximately 3,700 of its stores across the United States. Although it failed to reach its initial goal of launching the payment service to every store by the end of June, it added close to 1,300 stores in 19 new states throughout last week. Now, the total number of states where the mobile payments service is available has reached 37 and also includes Washington D.C., reported Chain Store Age.

The digital wallet service rollout started back in May 2016.

The service was officially announced by the monster retailer back in December of 2015. Texas and Arkansas were the first states to receive the service. Walmart’s payment solution – which works via the retailer’s mobile shopping app – launched at 600 stores across both states back in May.

The 19 new states where Walmart Pay is now live include: Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Washington, Ohio , Idaho, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont and Rhode Island.

Walmart Pay has a massive built-in potential customer base.

Currently, Walmart’s mobile app has 22 million active users. With such a huge consumer base, Walmart Pay has plenty of potential for success.

The mobile payments service from Walmart is easy to use and is one of the options on the retailer’s mobile app. Consumer with the app can choose the payment option at checkout, which activates their smartphone camera. With their camera they scan the code displayed at the register. The scanned code will connect them to Walmart Pay. Once the transaction is complete, an e-recipe is sent to the app. Customer can view this e-receipt whenever they want.

In addition to their own digital wallet service, the American multinational retail corporation also intends to accept other forms of digital and mobile payments within its stores.

While certainly not the first to launch it s own mobile payments solution, Walmart’s decision to rollout Walmart Pay could prove advantageous for the company. Although consumers aren’t likely to obtain many merchant-specific payment apps, it is the largest Tier I retailers – like Walmart – that have the highest potential to experience the most success with these services.

According to HTC China’s President, VR is going to last longer than the smartphone cycle.

Virtual reality (VR) is going to dominate smartphones within four years, says Alvin Graylin, president of HTC China. Speaking at Mobile World Congress Shanghai, Graylin said that VR is the upcoming disruptor that will dominate mobile phones. It took smarpthones five years to surpass the total unit sales of PC and now he predicts VR will do the same to Smartphones in four years.

“VR is going to take over, and I predict it will last longer than nine years,” Graylin stated. “It’s going to replace every screen, and users will enjoy a different way to experience things like live events.”

HTC plans to invest billions in the future of VR.

HTC, the Taiwanese consumer electronics company, recently launched a consortium that brings together 28 of the world’s biggest VC (venture capital) firms. This consortium is dedicated to investing $10 billion in the future of virtual reality.

Graylin said at the Mobile World Congress that the VR VC Alliance will not only invest in a VR future but also set the direction for where this immersive technology is headed. “Think about what $10 billion can do for this industry,” he stated.

Graylin boasts that HTC’s virtual reality hardware is far superior to its competition.

HTC has put a great deal of time, effort and money into its VR headset Vive. Graylin said that compared to the VR hardware of other companies like Oculus, Samsung and Sony, Vive is way ahead of the game in terms of providing both a higher quality experience and having far more content.

Currently, Vive already has over 300 titles and Graylin said that this is like to become a “four-digit number very soon.” The executive expressed that the success of VR also depends on great content.

HTC launched its $100 million Vive X fund program two months ago. The program is designed to jump-start development. According to Graylin, the company has already received 1,200 applications from companies across the globe. Half of the companies are from China.

As for its plans to spin off its virtual reality group, an independent company was recently approved by the HTC board to operate the Vive business.