Will Apple Pay be introduced within this year and will Apple Pay be available at marts and convenience stores at the end of the year?
Apple Pay, introduced by Hyundai Card affiliates within this year?
An Apple service center in Seoul. According to industry reports on the 7th, Apple is said to have recently entered the stage of finalizing a contract with Hyundai Card to introduce Apple Pay in Korea. Hyundai Card recently completed an exclusive contract with Apple for the use of Apple Pay, and is currently in the process of developing a system with VAN companies.
First of all, the authenticity is still difficult to ascertain. However, once Apple Pay enters the Korean market, it is likely that payment will be possible from distribution merchants affiliated with Hyundai Card. Hyundai Card has partnerships with Costco, convenience stores, hypermarkets, and coffee franchises. Payment may be available from these merchants.
Apple Pay, launched in 2014, is Apple’s mobile payment service. Even without a physical card, you can buy things just by holding your iPhone. Samsung Pay installed on Galaxy smartphones is more familiar to domestic residents. Currently, payments through Samsung Pay are available at 2.8 million merchants nationwide. There are probably quite a few people who have registered multiple physical cards in Samsung Pay and no longer carry their wallets with them when they go out.
The reason the rumors regarding the introduction of Apple Pay are constantly being raised is that there are many users who want the feature. However, there are many reasons why the feature hasn’t arrived yet. One of the biggest reasons is the low domestic market share of Apple’s iPhone. Unlike Samsung Galaxy products, which record a market share of 70% in Korea, Apple has a low market share of 22% (as of the first quarter of this year, Counterpoint Research University).
Therefore, Apple can consider Apple Pay as a card that can dramatically increase the number of users. If you ask, “Why are you here now?”, the proportion of Generation Z iPhone users has already exceeded half. According to Open Survey’s ‘Generation Z Trend Report 2021’, the domestic iPhone usage rate of Generation Z has exceeded 52%, and when limited to 10-20 units in Seoul, Apple’s share exceeds Samsung Electronics at 60%.
If you access used trading platforms such as Carrot Market or Lightning Market, you will find quite a few stories like this. ‘I bought a Galaxy smartphone as a surprise for my middle school child’s birthday, but I put it out because I mightn’t get an iPhone.’ It is something you should see at least once in various communities. In fact, in a situation where the proportion of 1020 generation using iPhones is overwhelming, Apple can offer Apple Pay as a customer card.
Apple opened its first Apple Store in Garosu-gil, Seoul, and repeatedly pushed Korea out of the country where the iPhone was first released, causing controversy over ‘Korean food’ for several years. However, recently, Apple stores have been launched in Myeong-dong, Seoul and Yeouido, creating a friendly atmosphere.
Even if Apple Pay is launched, there is still a long way to go before commercialization
iPhone 14 prediction image.However, the reason why Apple Pay is always introduced is because the domestic market share is low and the cost to be paid is high. To use Apple Pay, you need a payment terminal that can read NFC (Near Field Communication) technology. It is said that millions of merchants across the country must have NFC terminals, but currently only 60,000 to 70,000 places nationwide have NFC terminals.
It is a question of who can afford to install NFC terminals, which cost regarding 200,000 won per unit, at affiliated stores nationwide. It doesn’t seem easy for Apple to pay for that. It seems that it is not easy for credit card companies to bear the cost.
In Korea, magnetic cards were mainly used in the past, so we have magnetic terminals. This is the so-called MST (magnetic secure transmission) payment method. The reason Samsung Pay was able to monopolize the domestic market is because Galaxy smartphones can be operated using the MST method.
But eventually, the number of NFC terminals is bound to increase as well. This is because Samsung Electronics, which has been making great gains with the MST method, is now making a move to completely switch to Samsung Pay with the NFC method. This is because NFC payment terminals are becoming more common in the global market. Currently, Samsung Galaxy global models are equipped with only a separate NFC antenna, but they are planning to completely change it to NFC.
When Apple Paysol is released every year like this, I think at the same time that the release of a new iPhone model is imminent. Coincidentally, the 8th is the day the new iPhone model, the iPhone 14, will be released. A day before the launch of the new model, the timing of the Apple Pay rumors seems to be coincidental.
[홍성용 기자]
[ⓒ 매일경제 & mk.co.kr, 무단전재 및 재배포 금지]
