Samsung has unveiled two new larger smartphones as well as a new mobile payment service designed to take on Apple Pay.
The Galaxy S6 Edge+, a larger version of the existing edge smartphone, and the Galaxy Note 5, a phablet device that comes with a stylus were unveiled by the South Korean technology giant at a launch event in New York yesterday.
Both phones have a 5.7-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display - half an inch bigger than the current Edge - giving it a larger display than the iPhone 6 Plus made by arch rival Apple. The Note 5 will not initially go on sale in the UK upon launch.
Andy Griffiths, Samsung president in the UK and Ireland, said: "At Samsung, we're committed to offering our customers a best-in-class technology experience, providing the ultimate on-the-go immersive multimedia viewing experience.
"The launch of the Galaxy S6 Edge+ delivers on this promise. Combining the world's first dual-edge display with a range of intuitive features and an incredibly vivid, large screen, we're re-emphasising our ongoing commitment to bold, fearless innovation that meets the needs of today's consumers."
The firm also used the event in New York to launch Samsung Pay, its own take on the mobile payments market designed to compete with Apple Pay. The service will launch first in South Korea on August 20, followed by the US on September 28. A UK launch has yet to be scheduled.
The system lets users make contactless payments using the near-field communication (NFC) technology employed by most smartphone makers and is protected by fingerprint verification and digital tokenization, as well as Samsung Knox - a security features that separates business and personal content on the same handset and lets the user seamlessly switch between the two.
Unlike Apple Pay, Samsung's solution also contains magnetic secure transmission (MST) technology, which allows users to pay by simply holding their phone to any payment terminal with a magnetic strip reader for credit cards.
Samsung's most recent financial results showed that earnings across the company were down eight per cent overall, but closer to 38 per cent in the mobile division, as Apple and Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei and Xiaomi start to squeeze Samsung's space in the smartphone market.
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