According to a Bloomberg report, the Swatch Bellamy smartwatch is a basic timepiece, which comes with built-in “near-field communication” (NFC) capability to facilitate users in making mobile payments. It combines a traditional Swiss watch with a fitness tracker, an accelerometer and other “smart” features. Now we had heard that the company was planning to bring Apple Pay to China via a partnership with UnionPay, but it looks like Swatch has beat them to it.
Advertisement
The new model is called “Swatch Bellamy” and it can be described as the company’s first “pay-by-the-wrist” watch.
The name “Bellamy” is derived from American writer Edward Bellamy, whose late 19-century novel ‘Looking Backward 2000-1887 envisioned a world where cash was replaced with credit and debit cards. To be fair, that’s pretty much what Swatch CEO Nick Hayek Jr. promised last month in an interview teasing the device. It will then be rolled out to Switzerland and the U.S.at a later date. The watches are on sale exclusively from the nation’s fun-sounding Bank of Communications. The country is a huge market for watches, and the timepiece is a status symbol in China.
China’s mobile payment transactions jumped 134 percent to 22.6 trillion yuan ($3.6 trillion) in 2014, according to the central bank.
Advertisement
Uncertainty is, nevertheless, big as China has recently confronted itself with a powerful financial crisis. Smartwatches have a worldwide market, and as tech firms introduce one innovation after another, established watch makers feel the need to keep up with the hype and secure their niche in a business that has defined them. Always happy to acknowledge fellow innovators and visionaries, Swatch has named its new pay-by-the-wrist watch “SWATCH BELLAMY”.
