Samsung Pay is on its way – the company began a trial of its mobile payments service on July 15 in Korea with select S6 and S6 Edge owners, in preparation for a full rollout.

The company's mobile payment technology utilizes near field communication and card readers with magnetic secure transmission technologies, meaning it's already fully compatible with most POS terminals.

Samsung Pay is enabled by NFC technology that Samsung obtained during its acquisition of mobile payments company LoopPay. NFC is also used by Apple Pay, Google Wallet and Android Pay, and permits Samsung's phones to communicate with magnetic stripe card readers.

A typical credit card reading process entails the sliding of a magnetic credit card strip through a magnetic read head located in a card reader. Samsung Pay's technology instead takes the data contained in the card's magnetic strip and wirelessly transmits it to the read head using magnetic fields. This means that while NFC-based solutions require a particular type of card reader, Samsung Pay may also be used with older card readers that don't support NFC.

Samsung Pay, which also utilizes tokenization technology, did not announce a date for a wider rollout.

Meanwhile, Apple Pay continues to forge ahead.

The Atlanta-based payments company Ingenico Group North America recently highlighted Apple Pay's high penetration in a newly-released infographic, which revealed more than one million U.S. locations now accept Apple Pay, and two out of three users believe Apple Pay is more secure than a traditional credit card. In addition, nearly half of all U.S. consumers who use a mobile payments app chose Apple Pay, Ingenico reported.

The Washington-based Gallup tells a slightly different story in a new analysis based on a Gallup Panel web study conducted from Nov. 20 to Dec. 1, 2014. According to the analysis, nearly two-thirds of consumers are at least somewhat familiar with Apple Pay, awareness of Apple Pay among current digital wallet users is at 78%, and among current Apple Passbook users, it's at 89%.

However, awareness doesn't always lead to usage, according to Gallup, which found that only 21% of iPhone customers actually use the Passbook app, and iPhone represents just half (48%) of the smartphone market.

“Though Apple is better positioned to drive adoption than some of its digital wallet competitors, it still has a way to go before Apple Pay becomes ubiquitous,” Gallup reported.

Only 6% of consumers surveyed by Gallup said they are very likely or likely to start using Apple Pay in the next 12 months. This reality isn't unique to Apple; Gallup's analysis shows that most customers are still looking for value in a digital wallet provider.

So, can Apple's digital wallet entice potential customers to purchase or switch to an iPhone? Maybe not, as 77% of consumers say the availability of Apple Pay has no influence on whether or not they will buy an iPhone, Gallup said. In fact, a greater percentage of consumers say the availability of Apple Pay makes them less likely to buy an iPhone, compared with those who say it makes them more likely to.

“Apple Pay may be an added benefit for current Apple users, but it appears unlikely to be a feature that will entice loyal Android users to switch,” Gallup said.

Apple can still take solace in the fact that its digital wallet outpaces its competitors in customer engagement and usage by far. Among the digital wallet providers with the greatest percentage of users – Apple, Google and PayPal – Apple has the highest percentage of fully engaged customers at 37%, and by far the lowest percentage of actively disengaged customers at 14%.

Instant Insights /

Samsung Preps for Mobile Payments Launch

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