NFC TIMES Exclusive – While Apple Pay next month will mark the 5th anniversary since its launch in the U.S., there is another contactless-mobile payments service that is three times as old as Apple Pay–Japan’s Osaifu-Keitai, or wallet phones, which this year turned 15.
This service was spearheaded by Japan’s largest mobile operator NTT DoCoMo, with substantial help from Sony, using its FeliCa contactless technology, and Tokyo regional rail operator JR East. The latter did not launch its contactless-mobile transit and retail payments service, Mobile Suica, on the wallet phones in early 2006, as it sought to meet the strict performance standards for Suica cards, including super-fast speeds.
Mobile Suica and Osaifu-Keitai in general have largely been a disappointment, and even with Apple Pay supporting Mobile Suica for the past four years in Japan, and Google Pay adding the service in 2018, Mobile Suica still only accounts for 7.2 million, or about 9.5% of the 76 million total physical and digital Suica cards on issue, Tomohiko Umekawa, deputy general manager in the Suica IT and business development department for JR East, told NFC Times.
