Samsung are the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer with reach across many regions and countries. The business also has interests in many different industries over and above Android-powered smartphones and tablets, including selling the most popular television for the last decade, the third largest shipbuilder in the world, refrigerators and other domestic appliances, and we are led to believe, a self-driving car at some point in the coming years. In addition to the Android-powered devices, Samsung also have a family of Tizen OS-powered smartphones and smartwatches. Samsung have also released a mobile payment system, called Samsung Pay, which has currently been made available to a number of high end Samsung devices in some parts of the world. Samsung appear to be working hard to increase the device compatibility, countries where it is supported and the banking systems that work with Samsung Pay.
Samsung Pay isn’t without its disadvantages: to use the service, customers need to have a reasonably modern Samsung flagship device, although two of the new Galaxy A-models will also support Samsung Pay. The Gear smartwatches will support Samsung Pay going forwards and we are sure that Tizen OS-powered devices will also support it at some point. We have also seen how Samsung Pay will not work properly on an encrypted Android device, which seems something of a backwards step for a service that is designed with security in mind. Samsung, presumably, is aware of these flaws in its mobile payment product and is working to improve matters. We have also seen a number of new features launched for Samsung Pay including an ability to use Gift Cards, which ought to improve the appeal of the product.
Samsung have recently released an update to the Samsung Pay application for compatible devices, which has been detailed as mandatory for all users – indeed, the accompanying notes explain that the update must be applied by the 27 December “to avoid any service interruptions.” These notes also detail that the updated application features optimized memory usage plus improvements to performance and notifications. The Gift Card interface has been streamlined, too. Samsung have included an option to receive a Samsung Pay related marketing information, which is opt-in. The marketing information is said to include special offers, membership benefits and newsletters from Samsung Pay’s partner organizations.