South Korea was the first market where the Samsung Pay mobile payments service was launched. The company eventually made it available to markets across the globe. It's been several years since this service has been operating and as you'd expect, millions of people rely on it to make payments daily, particularly in Samsung's home country of South Korea.
An outage is definitely going to cause headaches for users who rely on the payments service every single day. That's precisely what happened with Samsung Pay in South Korea earlier this week. The outage comes at the worst possible time for Samsung as Apple Pay has only recently launched in South Korea.
As Apple Pay arrives, Samsung Pay goes down
Samsung Pay suffered a nationwide outage in South Korea earlier this week. Samsung later confirmed that “Intermittent delays in biometric authentication are occurring when trying to pay with Samsung Pay. We will do our best to take action as soon as possible.”
It was subsequently revealed by the company that “A software error occurred during an app update process.” The issue was resolved quickly but it still left many users unable to make payments for some time. Given that Samsung Pay accounts for 24% of the market in South Korea, the outage had an impact on many people.
Users who completely rely on Samsung Pay to make payments instead of using plastic credit cards or cash were left embarrassed when they were unable to pay. One user complained about not being able to pay their public transportation fare using Samsung Pay and thus facing some trouble on the way to work.
Samsung has been working hard to solidify Samsung Pay's dominance in South Korea as Apple Pay has finally launched in its backyard a few weeks ago. It may finally bring Samsung Pay to Galaxy Watches in South Korea, a clear sign that it's responding to Apple Pay's presence in the market.
