Samsung has one less rival to worry about in the mobile payment market, particularly in Korea. While Apple Pay is in, LG Pay is out. The latter service will be shutting down in Korea next month, six years after its debut.
A new report citing Pulse News says LG Electronics decided it will end its Pay service in Korea on June 30. Reportedly, the reason is due to LG Pay falling too far behind more popular services, including Apple Pay, Naver Pay, and Samsung Pay.
Apple Pay coming to Korea appears to have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Apple launched its Pay service in Korea in mid-March, and LG Pay may have lost even more market share as a result.
LG Pay is now following the company's mobile business, but there may be hope
LG launched its Pay service in Korea in 2017 and in the USA in 2019. The company ended the Pay service in the USA two years later in 2021. Incidentally, LG Electronics shut down its entire smartphone business the same year, as its smartphones failed to attract enough customers and kept lagging behind the competition. LG is not the only Android smartphone OEM to have suffered this fate in recent years.
Samsung and Apple benefited from LG's mobile business shutting down the most. And now, they may also be the ones to benefit from LG Pay's demise in South Korea. But interestingly enough, there may still be hope for LG's payment system, the latter of which could return in the future.
Reports say that, although the company is ending LG Pay next month, LG wants to review the business and see if there's a place for it in 2024. It sounds like LG Pay could come back at some point next year, but by then, there's always the possibility that Samsung and Apple may have an even tighter grip on the online payment business in Korea.
