Samsung has launched a wide variety of smartphones now this year, as they do every year. However, in spite of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Note 5 devices being released, what has gained considerable attention and headlines is not a smartphone at all. It is not even their highly anticipated smartwatch, the Samsung Gear S2. Instead, it is Samsung Pay. This is big news for a variety of reasons, although, one of the biggest, is that it is launched in the same time-frame that Android Pay has. Essentially, establishing itself as a main contender for what is supposed to be a default mobile payment method for Android devices from the get-go.
That said, the one thing Android Pay has over Samsung Pay, is the variety of devices that it is compatible with. Unlike Android Pay, Samsung Pay is extremely limited in its compatibility and currently will only work with the latest and greatest devices from the South Korean company. Those flagship devices and their Gear S2 smartwatches. This is an area that is a considerable downfall for the mobile payment solution and one which will affect its overall adoption figures, compared to the likes of Android or Apple Pay. On this note, the latest is that it does now seem that there is the first indications that Samsung do plan to make the payment format more openly available to other, specifically, older Galaxy devices.
To be clear, there is no outright confirmation on this, but what there is, is a snippet of information on how the company seem to be viewing the payment option. Shin Jong-kyun, Head of Samsung Mobile, was asked about if the company was planning on expanding the compatibility with Samsung Pay and in answering, stated “it will gradually expand“. Now, this is far from anything concrete and does leave the timeline of expansion wide open, but it does at least suggest that the company do plan on widening the compatibility in the future. This is probably not too surprising when you consider that the anticipation in the U.S. for Samsung Pay is growing quickly and especially after the news that 500,000 subscribers have already signed-up to Samsung Pay in South Korea.