Samsung Pay made its debut last year in South Korea in August and then launched in the US in September. At the end of 2015, the company announced that it was bringing its mobile payment service to China.
After a one month beta period, Samsung Pay is now available for local users with a Galaxy S6 edge Plus, Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 edge.
Apple was able to bring Apple Pay to China on February 18. Both companies are collaborating with China’s biggest bankcard company UnionPay to offer their services to more users. Samsung Pay will also have the support of many of China’s largest banks including ICBC, China Construction Bank and China Merchants Bank. The Bank of China and the Bank of Communications will also be supported at a later date.
In the United States and South Korea, both the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 edge support Samsung Pay. However these two devices will not be supported during the initial launch of the service in China, but since they were involved in the open beta it is probable that they might be supported at a later date.
The launch of Samsung Pay in China has managed to come ahead of the launch of the service in Europe despite the initial news that European launch would coincide with the release of the Galaxy S7.
Samsung may have decided to move up the Chinese launch to better compete against Alipay and WeChat, which already have a strong hold over the country’s mobile payments.
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