Tag: Apple Pay

Samsung may be preparing to show off its new payments platform

Samsung may be planning to reveal its new mobile payments platform as early as next week. The company is expected to unveil the platform at the upcoming Mobile World Congress. The company is speculated to have partnered with Visa to develop the new service, which is called Samsung Pay. The new platform could serve as direct competition with Apple Pay, which has managed to establish a strong foothold in the mobile payments sector in the United States.

NFC technology will continue to be supported in the mobile commerce space

Samsung has shown significant interest in mobile transactions in the past. Many of the company’s smartphones are equipped with NFC technology. This technology can be used for various purposes, such as engaging with dynamic marketing and sharing digital media with other NFC-enabled devices. NFC does comprise the backbone of most mobile payments services, however, making it one of the foundational technologies in the mobile commerce space. Samsung is expected to roll out the service alongside the launch of its new smartphone, the Galaxy 6, which will also be equipped with NFC technology.

Samsung Pay will not only support NFC-based mobile payments

Though much of the mobile payments space is governed by NFC technology, Samsung Pay may not be exclusive to those with NFC-enabled devices. The new platform is expected to be able to support mobile transactions even without utilizing NFC technology. This could make it more accommodating to consumers that do not have NFC-enabled devices and make it more accessible to the retail industry as a whole. Retailers without NFC-enable point-of-sale systems would be able to accept transactions made through Samsung Pay.

Samsung Pay could become significant competition for Apple Pay in the coming months

Rumors suggest that Samsung Pay will be compatible with as much as 90% of the point-of-sale systems that are being used by retailers currently. If this is true, this would make it more accessible than Apple Pay, which supports only NFC-based transactions. Samsung Pay could, therefore, become a major competitor to Apple Pay.

The most successful smartphone transaction service is continuing to rise in popularity.

As much as Apple Pay may be holding the spotlight, at the moment, when it comes to mobile payments services, on the side of actual successes that have been proving themselves over time, Starbucks has remained at the very top of the list.

An earnings call from Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO, revealed considerable data and insight.

Schultz explained that in the financial quarter that came to an end on December 28, 2014, Starbucks had more than 13 million mobile payments app users throughout the United States. This shows a rise of 1 million people from the previous quarter, when there had been just over 12 million users of that mobile application. Overall, this brought about a considerable user base for the smartphone based transactions in its store locations.

Schultz reported that 16 percent of the total transactions processed by the company were through mobile payments.

Comparatively, Apple Pay had been reporting early victories in the use of that mobile wallet at Whole Foods, where 1 percent of the sales had been processed using smartphones. Clearly, Starbucks has been able to not only create a success out of its service, but it has managed to do so in a solid way that is generating a rapid, steady increase in the number of people who are actually using it. They have managed to avoid becoming a flash in the pan gimmick and have provided their customers with a transaction method that they are happy to use on a regular basis.

In his own words, Schultz stated that “We continue to see broad customer acceptance and adoption of our mobile payment technologies,” adding that “Today in the U.S. alone, over 13 million customers were actively using our mobile apps. And we are now averaging more than 7 million mobile transactions in our stores each week—representing 16% of total tender. That’s more than any other bricks-and-mortar retailer in the marketplace.”

Starbucks isn’t planning to simply stay put with the current offerings of its mobile payments app. It now intends to roll out a smartphone based ordering service, which is already underway as a part of a trial in Portland, Oregon.