Samsung is reportedly working on a new smartwatch that will enable customers to make mobile payments in the near term.
Mobile payment services are not a new service but currently it is neither used by many people nor accepted by many merchants. However, companies like Apple, Google, Samsung and more are now busy making the most of the growing business.
On March 1, Samsung announced Samsung Pay, the company's mobile payment service that was expected to be launched in the U.S. and Korea in summer. However, a recent report suggested that the service will be launched in September along with the company's next top-end mobile device.
"Samsung Pay will reinvent how people pay for goods and services and transform how they use their smartphones," said JK Shin, the CEO of Samsung Electronics in early March. "The secure and simple payment process, coupled with our robust partner network, makes Samsung Pay a truly game-changing service that will bring value to consumers and our partners in the ecosystem."
While payments via mobile phones are getting common, payment through smartwatches is still very rare. Apple Watch is one of the only smartwatches that allow payments by Apple Pay.
However, it seems Samsung is also jumping onto the bandwagon and is speculated to launch a smartwatch that is capable of making mobile payments and rival Apple Watch.
Korean publication ETNews (in Korean) cites sources familiar with the matter and suggests that Samsung is planning to launch the mobile payment capable smartwatch in the second half of this year.
Samsung normally launches the Galaxy Note series handset in September and has already announced that Samsung Pay will debut in September as well. It seems that a new Samsung watch capable of mobile payment will also be revealed alongside the Galaxy Note 5 and Samsung Pay.
Samsung already has a number of smartwatches in the market but none of them can be used to make mobile payments. The upcoming Samsung smartwatch will use NFC to support mobile payments.
Samsung has a huge smartphone customer base worldwide, which will be beneficial to Samsung Pay. However, the wearable market is still at a nascent stage and not many people use Samsung wearables. The upcoming Samsung smartwatch will have to be something special to attract more customers so that more and more customers use Samsung Pay.
Photo: Karlis Dambrans | Flickr
