Before Apple Pay, Samsung Pay to Come to India

South Korean tech giant Samsung is planning to launch its mobile payment wallet in India in the first half of 2017, media reports said.

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According to a report in Mashable India, to bring Samsung Pay in India, Samsung has partnered with American Express and is mulling over "exploring opportunities with giants such as Visa and MasterCard as well."

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With Samsung Pay's advent into the country, the domestic e-payment platforms will face a tough competition.

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"Samsung began testing the service in India in December 2016. Earlier this week, the South Korean technology company rolled out an update to the Galaxy Note5 smartphone in India which included the Samsung Pay app," the report noted.

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Samsung Pay supports MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission), that allows a user to send a magnetic signal from smartphone to the payment terminal's card reader.

However, Samsung Pay only works with high-end premium Samsung smartphones, limiting its reach.

According to marketing research firm Counterpoint, Samsung has over 2.5 million Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, Galaxy S6 Edge Plus, Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge, and Galaxy Note5 (the smartphones that support Pay) customers in India.

"This is a pretty good install base and mature users for Samsung Pay to gain initial traction," Tarun Pathak, senior analyst at Counterpoint was quoted as saying.

Post-demonetisation, mobile wallet apps -- such as Paytm and MobiKwik -- have registered tremendous growth in transactions and downloads. As such, Samsung's interest in the country is understandable.