HTC NFC phone to go on sale in China

The HTC Stunning, the company’s first NFC phone, will be launched in China in September via a deal with payments network China UnionPay.

HTC Stunning NFC demonstration
STUNNING: An HTC phone shown making an NFC payment

HTC has announced its first NFC phone. The HTC Stunning is a 4-inch screen smartphone powered by Google’s Android operating system and is the first to support China UnionPay’s NFC mobile payment standard.

“HTC believes that mobile payments will become an indispensable function for smartphones, and we expect to jointly establish a complete industry chain of mobile payments based on such strategic alliances,” Fred Liu, HTC’s president of engineering and operations, said in a statement, Focus Taiwan reports.

“Mobile phone users no longer have to bring their bank cards in the future, because their smartphones can provide the same function,” Chai Hongfeng, executive vice-president of China UnionPay, said at a news briefing in Shanghai, China Daily reports:

Chai added that the launch of HTC’s mobile payment handset could spearhead China’s mobile payment era, as mobile phone use is now a part of daily life.

He said mobile payment could quickly gain popularity, provided that it offers increased convenience and security.

He also disclosed that China UnionPay is deploying initial strategic arrangements in about a dozen Chinese mainland cities, in cooperation with local banks to push forward mobile payment businesses.

There are currently 400,000 POS machines in China and this is likely to increase to 700,000 by the end of this year, China Daily adds.

HTC has been working on the new handset for some time, China Daily continues:

“HTC has been developing the mobile payment handset for more than a year. We cooperated with China UnionPay for merely six months before we introduced the device,” Dennis Chen, head of the Asia and China Enterprise department of HTC Corp, told China Daily.

“We support China UnionPay’s mobile payment standard because it is an industry standard and is open for any mobile devices. It means customers will have more choices,” Chen said.

HTC will also work with Shanghai F-Road Commercial Services Co to introduce the services in China, Focus Taiwan adds. F-Road is a Chinese mobile application developer that tailors apps for financial institutions to offer mobile financial services on smartphones. HTC bought a US$5.5m stake in F-Road in January this year.

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One comment on this article

  1. Horray!!! We don’t have to carry any forms of money anymore except for our phones and we don’t to have to worry about hackers.

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