Not lagging behind rival tech company Apple, Samsung has also launched ‘Samsung Pay,’ a convenient mobile payments service, in the world’s largest smartphone market.

On Monday, Samsung announced that the Samsung Pay service is now available in China. This means that Apple as well as China’s own Alipay and WeChat have another comeptitor in the mobile payments market.

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"The reception of Samsung Pay since its launch has been extremely positive,” ," Samsung Pay’s global chief Injong Rhee explains, “and the service has already seen tremendous success in terms of availability and adoption by consumers.”

Apple expects China to become its largest mobile payments market, and Korean giant Samsung also predicts the same. Samsung Pay comes to China just a little more than a month after Apple Pay did.

Samsung also made a partnership with China UnionPay – the same company that Apple made a partnership with to launch in China – so that its payment service can enter the country.

Samsung Pay does not need to use Near Field Communications (NFC) for it to work. Instead, Samsung has designed it to work with any magnetic strip card reader. Users will be able to connect up to 10 UnionPay debit and credit cards to their devices, in order to use the feature.

Several companies that are participating in the first run of the service include China Construction Bank, ICBC, as well as China Merchants Bank, among others. Regarding the devices, only the Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6 Edge+, Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge are currently supported by the Samsung Pay service. More devices are expected to be included in the list in the future.

TagsSamsung, Samsung Pay, apple, apple pay, china