THE JAPAN NEWS

 

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — Apple Pay, Apple Inc.’s mobile payment service, was activated on the U.S. technology firm’s iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus smartphones in Japan on Tuesday.

The service is now available for the Suica, iD and QUICPay electronic money systems, respectively managed by East Japan Railway Co, or JR East, NTT Docomo Inc. and JCB Co.

The Suica system was partially down in the morning, due apparently to excessive user access following the start of Apple Pay, leaving users unable to reload cash to their Suica accounts and buy some train tickets on smartphones, according to JR East.

Japan is the 12th country or region where the service started. It was originally launched in the United States in 2014.

In Japan, a similar mobile payment service, called Osaifu-Keitai, has already become popular on smartphones running on Google Inc.’s Android operating system.

The Japan launch of Apple Pay followed the release last month of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, which are equipped with the FeliCa contactless card technology developed by Sony Corp.

More than 160 million payments using FeliCa-equipped cards and gadgets are believed to be made every day throughout Japan, including at supermarkets and convenience stores.