Samsung is having their big day in the sun across the pond in Barcelona, Spain right now and during the same event that Samsung announced the new Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge, they also had some Samsung Pay news to share. The service was launched with last year’s Galaxy S6 and Galaxy Note 5 line of devices, but was only available in the US at the time. Just before Mobile World Congress, we were hearing lots of news that Samsung would be preparing a launch of Samsung Pay in China as well as Spain. Now, during their event earlier today, Samsung have confirmed that 2016 will see the service launch in a further 7 countries throughout the world.
China, Australia and Brazil appear to be the first in line – if the order of countries name by Samsung in a recent Tweet is anything to go by, that is – and joining them will be Spain, the United Kingdom, Canada and Singapore. These 7 will of course join the United States and South Korea, where Samsung originally launched the service. Over the past year or so, mobile payments systems have become big business, and we’re sure that Samsung will want to keep the ball moving regarding their own payments system. Competing with Apple is never easy, but when Apple Pay is already fully-featured across much of the globe, Samsung is certainly playing catch up, but with this move Samsung should help close the gap.
One thing that’s worth noting about Samsung Pay is that the service will allow Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S7 devices to pay for items at stores using older, card swipe machines. This is because down the sides of a Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S7 device is the mag-stripe technology used on the back of credit and debit cards out there. Samsung didn’t give any concrete information on just when these new countries would get Samsung Pay, just that it’s on its way to these countries. Either way, this is an important step for any mobile payments system, and we’ll likely hear more from Samsung closer to the global rollout of the Galaxy S7, which appears to be a lot sooner than we first thought.