Samsung Pay no longer works on non-Samsung phones, which is just silly

Although most Android users likely use Google Pay for NFC payments, it is far from the only option. There are plenty of third-party apps available that do the same thing — with varying levels of success.

One of these options is Samsung Pay. This app comes pre-installed on Samsung phones, but folks without a Samsung device could still use it if they wanted. Recently, however, Samsung has eliminated the ability for non-Samsung phones to download the app. To make matters worse, people with it already installed on non-Samsung phones are finding it doesn’t work anymore.

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As discussed on Reddit (via SamMobile), if the app is installed on a non-Samsung device, it now returns an “ID not valid” error. This renders the app useless. Additionally, as confirmed by Android Authority, the app no longer appears on the Google Play Store when using a non-Samsung phone. When you use a Samsung phone to search the Play Store, though, it appears as normal.

All this combined suggests Samsung is eliminating support for non-Samsung phones when it comes to Samsung Pay. However inconvenient this might be, it’s not unexpected. The recently-announced Samsung Wallet will replace Pay, and Wallet is already confirmed to be a Samsung-only service.

Of course, it’s awfully short-sighted for Samsung to do this. How can it expect to compete with Google Pay if a huge swath of Android users can’t even use it?

We’ve reached out to Samsung for comment on this and will update the article should we hear back.