LG Pay will launch in the United States by mid-2018 and support the company’s next two Android flagships, Yonhap News reported Tuesday, citing official communication from the Seoul-based firm. The first expansion of the mobile payments service is hence set to arrive approximately a year after its debut in LG’s home country of South Korea which acted as a test market and provided the tech giant with enough feedback to continue improving its solution in preparation for a wider release. While the initial version of the platform is being advertised as LG Pay, the original equipment manufacturer is said to be considering rebranding it into LG Wallet. Regardless of how the service ends up being called, it should be made available in the U.S. by the end of June, with LG targeting a release in the first half of the year.
The South Korean company will offer LG Pay on both the G7 and V40 Android smartphones, according to the same report. The former is expected to launch under a different name late next month at Mobile World Congress 2018 but as was the case with its predecessor, it may not be available stateside until mid-2018, meaning the U.S. variant of the device may already support LG Pay out of the box, though the latest report indicates it might be commercialized in the West by March or April. The firm’s additions to the flagship V series have traditionally been unveiled at Berlin-based IFA in late summer and the upcoming LG V40 should follow suit. Besides flagships, the LG K10 lineup should also receive support for the contactless service later this year, much like other recently introduced mid-rangers from the company and its two 2017 flagships – the G6 and V30. That expansion is only planned for South Korea and won’t reach the U.S. before 2019.
LG Pay is powered by Wireless Magnetic Communication, a technology that’s similar to Samsung’s Magnetic Secure Transmission service as it allows contactless mobile payments on regular credit card readers instead of relying on specialized equipment. As with Samsung Pay, such capabilities should increase LG Pay’s potential, making its adoption rates solely reliant on consumers instead of retailers, i.e. the latter’s willingness to invest in new readers.