Samsung Pay Unveiled at Annual 'Unpacked' Event to Compete With Apple, Google

Samsung unveiled two new smartphones at its ‘Unpacked’ event at New York's Lincoln Center on Thursday: The Galaxy Note 5 and the Galaxy S6 Edge Plus. This as the tech giant looks to chip away at Apple's (AAPL) impressive grip on the growing smartphone space, which boasts over 337 million units - a 12 percent increase from last year, according to IDC. Both devices have a 5.7 inch screen. 'Consumers wanted a huge screen, but they didn't want a big phone. And that's what we accomplished,’ said Shoneel Kolhatkar, senior director of product marketing at Samsung Telecommunications America. The Galaxy Note 5 still uses a stylus, the S-Pen, which the company says is like writing with a ballpoint pen. The Galaxy S6 Edge Plus maintains its curved edges, along with a 16-megapixel camera, compared to 8 megapixels on the iPhone 6. Samsung also announced Samsung Pay, launching September 28th, amid competition from Apple Pay and Google's (GOOG) forthcoming Android Pay. 'Samsung Pay is different from other, competing solutions out there like Apple Pay because it's accepted anywhere a credit card is accepted, so it has about 90 percent coverage,’ Kolhatkar added. Samsung is partnering with a slew of big names like American Express (AXP), Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA). Both devices hit stores on August 21 and are available for pre-order starting Thursday. TheStreet’s Scott Gamm has details from Samsung’s Unpacked event in New York.