Mobile Payment Systems: Samsung Pay Posts Quicker Growth Rate Than Apple Pay

Ever since it was launched in the United States market back in September of last year, Samsung Pay has achieved faster growth than Apple Pay, as reported by Bloomberg. Samsung’s contactless mode of payment may have one upped Apple’s equivalent service, but mobile payment systems overall are still a very long way from reaching mainstream success.

Samsung Pay has attracted 5 million adopters, at the same time amassed over $500 million worth in mobile payment transactions in the last six months. As for Android Pay, the mobile payment system that Google also rolled out in September of last year, it now has 5 million adopters, while Apple Pay’s usage has expanded to 12 million users since it was launched in October 2014. 

It is worth noting that Samsung Pay may have benefitted from the fact that the LoopPay technology it employs functions the same way as a standard magnetic stripe card when the handset is used with an in store scanner of physical cards. This gives retailers the advantage of using their already existing point of sale (POS) machines to facilitate Samsung Pay transactions. Apple Pay, on the other hand, only works with a limited number of retail terminals enabled with near field communications (NFC) technology.

Overall, mobile payment systems are still not that popular among smartphone owners. One huge factor contributing to this is that there just aren’t that many handsets yet that have support for today’s contactless modes of payments. For instance, Samsung Pay currently has support for a total of only five Galaxy mobile devices, while Apple Pay only works on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s models, plus the Apple Watch that is paired with an iPhone 5 or newer model.

Even among owners of smartphones that do have support for mobile payment systems, the growth is still pretty modest. As estimated by Crone Consulting, only 6 percent of iOS mobile users who can use Apple Pay actually do, 4 percent of those who own Samsung Pay compatible Galaxy devices use it, and only 1 percent of Android users who have Apple Pay ready devices use it. 

Still, there is hope for mobile payment systems in general. The key is persuading mobile users to actually use them in the first place. But it can not be denied that for many smartphone owners out there, mobile payment systems still seem more like novelty than actually convenient. And there are those who simply do not trust the technology, especially that it is still in its infancy stage (well, sort of).