Wal-Mart’s (NYSE:WMT) mobile payment service is getting close to reaching nationwide availability. Introduced last year, the service has now expanded to more than 30 states, with fourteen states recently added. New York, Washington, and California were added to the list of states where the service is active this week. Walmart promised that the service would be available nationwide by the first half of 2016.
The company mentioned a major rollout of the new service before the national holiday on July 4th. Now, Walmart Pay is one of the most common mobile payment solutions across major stores in all of the US today. The service is becoming more popular every month.
Walmart Pay is available for Android and iPhone devices. The feature lets customers use an app to pay at checkout by using their phone’s camera to scan a QR code. The code triggers a payment in the Walmart app. After purchasing items, the receipt shows up on the app with a picture of the items purchased.
The world of mobile payments is filled with competitors. However, Walmart Pay isn’t intended to be a competitor for Android Pay or Apple Pay. Wal-Mart is currently the only retailer to offer its own payment solution that works with any IOS or Android device. However, the app doesn’t allow you to pay at lots of third-party stores, like other mobile payment apps.
Walmart is one of the largest store chains and biggest brands in the United States. Many of its customers already use the company’s app to shop at its stores. Walmart reports serving more than 140 million customers a week, and, as of last year, 22 million of those guests use its app every month. It will be interesting to see how popular Walmart Pay will become in the next few weeks.