In a bid to tap India’s transition to digital payment solutions, Samsung earlier this year launched its Samsung Pay service in the country. What sets Samsung’s service apart from rest of the digital payment solutions is that it lets you make payments at traditional PoS machines without needing to physically swipe the card. Since a lot of PoS machines in India aren’t NFC enabled, Samsung Pay resolved a big issue. But the challenge with Samsung Pay and its stripped down version Samsung Pay Mini has been that it is restricted to Samsung phones only. Samsung now is looking to further tap the digital payment market by making its Samsung Pay available to non-Samsung smartphones, according to a report.
After pushing the service across its range of devices, Samsung is now looking to partner with other brands to integrate the Samsung Pay service on their smartphones, Gadgets360 reports. According to the report, the South Korean company is already in talks with major OEMs regarding the same. Though the report does not reveal the names of specific brands it is currently in talks with, it will be interesting to see whether brands like LG and Apple, which also offer similar services, will embrace Samsung Pay. It is worth pointing out that the rivals like Apple Pay and LG Pay are lagging behind as Samsung has gained the first mover advantage in several markets, including India.
It is also unclear how Samsung will go about integrating the Samsung Pay platform to other smartphone brands and also whether it will be for just Samsung Pay or Samsung Pay Mini as well. Currently, Samsung plans to bring the Samsung Pay service only to top-end and premium flagship phones in the market. Whether Samsung Pay Mini will soon come to other mid-range and budget smartphones from other brands is unknown.
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According to the report, Samsung is now looking at bringing the complete Samsung Pay experience even to mid-range and budget smartphones. But does this mean that Samsung is doing away with the Payn Mini? Samsung is already producing mid-range smartphones with high-end chipsets to support the complete Samsung Pay platform, suggests the report. The devices are expected to ship out later this year or in early 2018. In order to support the functionality, the smartphones need to come with a special chip that supports MST and Samsung is talking to OEMs to enable the functionality in their smartphones.
For more budget smartphones, Samsung is also looking at creating a separate accessory that can support the Pay service when connected to the smartphone. However, having an accessory beats the initial purpose of the platform which requires the user to carry nothing but the smartphone in order to make payments. The plans Samsung has are only tentative and it will be over the period of a few months that Samsung will finalize the strategy for the Samsung Pay service – in India and in international markets.
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