Apple Pay competitor Samsung Pay arrives in China with Alibaba partnership

Posted:
in iPhone edited May 2016
Samsung on Thursday announced it will bring its Samsung Pay mobile payments service to China through a partnership with e-commerce giant Alibaba's financial arm, an institution once rumored to be negotiating an identical deal for Apple Pay.




As part of the deal, Samsung Pay will be integrated with Alibaba subsidiary Ant Financial Services Group's Alipay, service, which currently boasts more than 450 million registered users, reports Reuters.

The system allows Samsung device owners to pay with provisioned cards or a registered Alipay account. The latter method should prove superior to Alipay's current implementation, which requires users to open a dedicated app before completing a transaction.

For Samsung, the partnership represents a way into China's massive payments sector, an industry fueled by a rapidly growing consumer base. The Korean tech giant has seen its share of the Chinese smartphone market eroded by Apple on the top end and local upstarts on the bottom.

Alibaba also benefits from the move. While the firm's Alipay network processes a majority of online payments, its mobile initiative has not enjoyed the same success. The company has been seeking out partnerships with major smartphone makers and was said to be in talks with Apple in 2014. Those negotiations apparently fell through.

Interestingly, Alipay recently expanded cooperative efforts with ride hailing service Uber to let Chinese account holders pay for rides overseas. Weeks later, Apple announced a substantial $1 billion investment in Chinese Uber rival Didi Chuxing.

Samsung Pay launched in the U.S. last September. Like Apple Pay, Samsung's solution supports NFC communication, but adds on a separate wireless technology for reproducing card swipes. Both systems are protected by fingerprint authentication.

Apple Pay made its way to China in February with initial support for 80 percent of all credit and debit cards issued in the country. Importantly, Apple was able to reach an agreement with state-owned China UnionPay, China's sole bank card agency and network.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 13
    SnRaSnRa Posts: 65member
    There's quite a bit of competition in the Chinese market in terms of mobile payment services. Xiaomi's QuickPass, in partnership with UnionPay, is coming soon and Huawei's mobile payment service, also with UnionPay, has been slowly rolling out since late last year.
    edited May 2016 EsquireCats
  • Reply 2 of 13
    EsquireCatsEsquireCats Posts: 1,268member
    They're not so much in competition with each other since you can't use Apple Pay on a Samsung phone, or vice versa. Really it's just a benefit to the consumers for merchants to be enticed into payment technologies.

    Samsung however will be hamstrung here, while Apple Pay is universal, Samsung will be tied to Alibaba who basically mean nothing the moment you leave China. (With neither the scaling ability to sign on banks worldwide.)
    calihjmnlteejay2012nolamacguyjbdragon
  • Reply 3 of 13
    cpsrocpsro Posts: 3,192member
    Samsung on Thursday announced it will bring its Samsung Pay mobile payments service to China through a partnership with e-commerce giant Alibaba's financial arm, an institution once rumored to be negotiating an identical deal for Apple Pay.
    I'm sure it was identical, until Samsung offered to pay Alibaba to keep Apple out.
    calijbdragon
  • Reply 4 of 13
    joshajosha Posts: 901member
    cpsro said:
    Samsung on Thursday announced it will bring its Samsung Pay mobile payments service to China through a partnership with e-commerce giant Alibaba's financial arm, an institution once rumored to be negotiating an identical deal for Apple Pay.
    I'm sure it was identical, until Samsung offered to pay Alibaba to keep Apple out.
    To me the name Alibaba sounds like a scammer .
    I hope Alibaba doesn't scam the Samsung Payers.  :D
  • Reply 5 of 13
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member
    They're not so much in competition with each other since you can't use Apple Pay on a Samsung phone, or vice versa. Really it's just a benefit to the consumers for merchants to be enticed into payment technologies.

    Samsung however will be hamstrung here, while Apple Pay is universal, Samsung will be tied to Alibaba who basically mean nothing the moment you leave China. (With neither the scaling ability to sign on banks worldwide.)
    Samsung Pay is available in the US and South Korea and will be available in 6 other countries this year including Australia, Canada and the UK.
  • Reply 6 of 13
    sirlance99sirlance99 Posts: 1,293member
    cpsro said:
    Samsung on Thursday announced it will bring its Samsung Pay mobile payments service to China through a partnership with e-commerce giant Alibaba's financial arm, an institution once rumored to be negotiating an identical deal for Apple Pay.
    I'm sure it was identical, until Samsung offered to pay Alibaba to keep Apple out.
    Do you have proof of that or are you just saying things to make yourself feel better?
  • Reply 7 of 13
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    So this never went beyond the talking phase between Apple and Alibaba?

    http://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/12/apple-in-talks-with-alibaba-to-bring-apple-pay-to-china.html

    This story is exactly a year old.
    edited May 2016
  • Reply 8 of 13
    RezRez Posts: 19member
    Wow, that samsung pay looks exactly like apple pay, with thumb security as well, come on Samsung show us more original
  • Reply 9 of 13
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    Rez said:
    Wow, that samsung pay looks exactly like apple pay, with thumb security as well, come on Samsung show us more original
    All the mobile payment stuff will look similar from company to company since the basics like encryption and tokenization are mandated by the payment industry standards.They're all masked to the service/retailer accepting the payment and all will be generally as secure as another.
    edited May 2016 sirlance99cnocbuimorrolan
  • Reply 10 of 13
    sirlance99sirlance99 Posts: 1,293member
    gatorguy said:
    Rez said:
    Wow, that samsung pay looks exactly like apple pay, with thumb security as well, come on Samsung show us more original
    All the mobile payment stuff will look similar from company to company since the basics like encryption and tokenization are mandated by the payment industry standards.They're all be masked to the service/retailer accepting the payment and all will be generally as secure as another.
    But, but, but Apple Pay. You're right. They are all pretty much the same since it is a standard. Apple didn't come up with it. You'll have many forms of NFC payment's soon that work all the same just like all the credit cards out there. 

    I try and use Apple Pay every chance I get but have yet to see anyone else use it. Android Pay works just as good as well. 
  • Reply 11 of 13
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Rez said:
    Wow, that samsung pay looks exactly like apple pay, with thumb security as well, come on Samsung show us more original
    They don't need to do anything different. Outside the US, Samsung can ripoff Apple without consequence.

    I'd be delighted if Apple entered global Samsung markets with the intent to undersell and destroy their Damsung's local dominance (maybe with a stealth Apple brand).
    edited May 2016 jbdragonlostkiwi
  • Reply 12 of 13
    igorskyigorsky Posts: 752member
    cpsro said:
    I'm sure it was identical, until Samsung offered to pay Alibaba to keep Apple out.
    Do you have proof of that or are you just saying things to make yourself feel better?
    Sounds like you've had your head in the sand for the past five years.
  • Reply 13 of 13
    sirlance99sirlance99 Posts: 1,293member
    igorsky said:
    Do you have proof of that or are you just saying things to make yourself feel better?
    Sounds like you've had your head in the sand for the past five years.
    Apple Pay hasn't been in existence for five years. 
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