By Lee Min-hyung
LG Electronics plans to launch a mobile payment platform as early as next month, the company said Wednesday.
"We will sign a deal with some of the country's major card companies before officially launching our mobile payment platform," said an LG Electronics official. But the official did not disclose details of the name of the service and an exact launch date.
In October, LG Electronics unveiled its plan to launch its own mobile payment system during a launch event of its latest flagship smartphone V10. The V10 comes with fingerprint recognition technology to be used for its mobile payment service.
LG Electronics will sign a partnership deal with the nation's two biggest card companies ― Shinhan Card and KB Kookmin Card, on Thursday, according to local reports.
For the payment service, the company previously registered a trademark for some potential service names including "LG-Play" both at home and the United States.
The move is expected to heat up competition in the mobile payment market where global technology giants ― including Samsung, Apple and Google ― are making aggressive moves to gain a leading position.
In particular, Samsung Electronics has been pushing to lead the market with its magnetic secure transmission (MST) technology, which guarantees wider usage than its rival Apple's near field communication (NFC)-based system. LG Electronics has yet to unveil which technology it will adopt for its mobile payment system.
But market analysts were skeptical of the success of the new service.
Noh Geun-chang, an analyst at HMC Investment & Securities, said, "The competition for the mobile payment market is so fierce, as an increasing number of IT giants are betting on similar services."
It still remains to be seen whether LG can gain momentum with the new payment service, due to attacks from Samsung, Apple, Alibaba and Android Pay, he added.
"Samsung Pay is getting more traction, and more people are using the service," he said. It will be tough for LG to gain a competitive edge at a time when the market competition gets more intensified, according to him.
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