The consumer electronics giant has backed out of launching its LG Pay service, this week.
LG Electronics had intended to wow attendees of the Mobile World Congress, this week, by launching its new mobile payments service called LG Pay but, at the last moment, it decided not to unveil the wallet app, after all.
The company claims that it decided not to use the MWC to launch its mobile wallet as it had a greater priority.
Since LG also intended to use the MWC to place the spotlight on its new flagship smartphone, the G5, it decided that launching the mobile payments service at the same time would take focus away from that new device. A source from the company, quoted by the Korea Times, explained that by delaying the launch of LG Pay, it will give the media more opportunity to focus on the new G5 smartphone.
Since the G5 is meant to be a very important smartphone in LG’s lineup, its mobile payments launch has to wait.
LG Electronics is depending on the G5 for a turnaround in the struggles it faced, last year, in its smartphones. The goal of this mobile device is to change directions from the losses faced in 2015, in order to use 2016 to come back to profitability, once again. Last year, the annual shipments of smartphones had actually risen, but only by a very slight amount. The main problem stemmed from the fourth quarter, in which shipments fell below the point that they had reached during the same quarter of 2014.
LG Pay, on the other hand, is a mobile wallet service that has been designed to add the electronics manufacturer to the large – and growing – number of other tech and financial companies that are offering these mobile apps to consumers. Now that its launch has been delayed, it has been rescheduled to hit the market in the second quarter of this year.
Though there had been claims that the reason LG delayed the launch of its mobile payments service was because it had not yet achieved solid support from major credit card issuers within its primary goal markets – including the United States – this was denied by a source who has knowledge in this area.
