Samsung to integrate fingerprint sensors and Samsung Pay in budget smartphones

Samsung is reportedly planning to integrate fingerprint sensors and Samsung Pay in all its budget smartphone models, according to a report by Android Authority.

The planned integration would be a considerable upgrade over Samsung’s existent product lineup, which only offers fingerprint sensors on its high-end phones as well as the Galaxy A8 mid-range model.

Samsung will have to devise a cost-effective way to manufacture the budget phones with fingerprint sensors in relation to their selling price, according to an unnamed source cited in a report by the Korea Herald.

In addition to featuring fingerprint sensors, Samsung’s budget smartphone models in the first half of 2016 are also expected to provide access to its NFC payment platform, Samsung Pay.

“Hwang Min-sung, an analyst from Samsung Securities, forecast that Samsung would surely install the payment system, which is compatible with both traditional magnetic stripes and Near Field Communication terminals, on its budget models running on Google’s Android operating system,” writes the Korea Herald.

Samsung Pay may also be expanded to smartphones operating on the open source platform Tizen, though Min-sung felt that “Tizen smartphones with the mobile payment function would have little impact on the market.”

The Android Authority report speculates that Samsung could decide to release a completely new line of budget products that features NFC and biometrics capabilities, allowing the new line of devices to exist alongside the inexpensive ‘no frills” models.

Previously reported, Samsung Pay officially went live in the U.S. at the end of September, following its launch this past summer in South Korea.

Article Topics

access control  |  biometrics  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  Samsung  |  Samsung Pay  |  smartphones