Apple says it's expanding its Apple Pay mobile-payment service next month to the United Kingdom, the service's second market after the US. In the US, Apple says 1 million retail locations will accept contactless-payment services such as Apple Pay by next month. The locations will include chains such as Trader Joe's and JC Penney.
It's still just a fraction of all retail outlets, but it's up from 700,000 in March and 200,000 when the service launched in October. Apple is working with payment service Square to get even more merchants to accept such payments starting this fall.
In the UK, Apple says there will be 250,000 merchant locations. With this fall's upgrade to the iOS mobile operating system, Apple Pay will let people add store credit cards, such as loyalty and gift cards from Dunkin' Donuts.
Apple Pay injected new life into mobile payments. Although it was long possible to make payments at retail stores with the tap of an Android phone, it wasn't easy to use. Apple changed that by bringing several banks and retailers on board from the start.
Google also has new hopes for mobile payment with last month's announcement of Android Pay, while Samsung plans a mobile-payment offering this year, staring in the US and Korea.
