Apple Pay Lands in Korea for 3 Weeks... Device Registrations Surpass 2 Million

Apple Pay, the contactless payment service from the US company Apple, has registered over 2 million devices within just three weeks of launching its service in South Korea. The usage rate among subscribers has reached 60%.

On the 11th, Chung Tae-young, Vice Chairman of Hyundai Card, announced on his Facebook account, "The number of subscription tokens surpassed 2 million in the third week since the launch of Apple Pay," adding, "The usage rate among subscribers is 60%." He further stated, "Near Field Communication (NFC) terminals are in short supply," and "Although the distribution of terminals is still lagging, the subscription and usage rates are pioneering a new frontier in simple payment services."

The 'token' mentioned by Vice Chairman Chung refers to the number issued by encrypting card information when registering a credit card on an Apple Pay device. Apple Pay does not store card numbers on Apple servers or personal devices but generates a unique device account number and uses an encrypted token. If one card is registered on two devices, such as an iPhone and an Apple Watch, an Apple Pay token is issued for each device. According to Vice Chairman Chung, 2 million tokens were issued in the 19 days following the launch of Apple Pay on the 21st of last month.

Earlier, Vice Chairman Chung also revealed the token issuance figures on Facebook the day after the Apple Pay launch. At that time, he said, "As of 10 PM on the 21st, the number of Apple Pay tokens issued exceeded 1 million," adding, "The Apple team calls it the 'highest record ever,' but we will carefully examine the specific meaning and criteria."

On the 23rd, a customer is making a payment using Apple Pay at a coffee shop in Seoul. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

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