14 DAY TRIAL // The mobile payment market continues to expand and competition amongst the top providers could result in the market surpassing the $1 trillion mark in the coming years. Android Pay, Samsung Pay, Microsoft Wallet and Apple Pay are the main services in the US, all competing for a chunk of the market.
While Apple Pay comes pre-loaded on various Apple devices and continues to expand service to multiple countries around the world, two of the other mobile payment services are directly competing against each other.
Android Pay and Samsung Pay are both based on the Android operating system and are both focusing on expanding to more and more countries. Samsung Pay is currently available in the United States, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, China, Spain, Brazil and Puerto Rico, with the version for India to be made available next year.
Samsung Pay processed over 100 million transactions in more than a year
Samsung Pay is currently available on the Galaxy S6 and S7 series, Galaxy A5, A7 and A9 smartphones, contributing to the 7-percent on-quarter rise in the electronic payment market in Q3. The service has processed over 100 million transactions since its launch, which took place more than a year ago.
Additionally, the service is also expected to hit the UK next year, following a delayed launch scheduled for 2016. Actually, Samsung Pay will be made available in over 10 countries next year, compared to Android Pay which can be used in just 9 countries.
However, Android Pay is also expanding massively, after being made available in Singapore, Australia, Japan and Hong Kong this year. Google is said to be including Android Pay in its Android OS in the future, which could only mean that Samsung could make the same move. Android Pay could be built into Android OS version 4.4 or higher, meaning that some Samsung phone owners could have Android Pay and Samsung Pay at their disposal.
Market researcher TrendForce (via Business Korea) estimates that the global mobile pay market might grow by 37.8% year on year in 2016 to $620 billion and reach $1.08 trillion in 2019.