Apple has just acquired MobeeWave, a startup with technology capable of turning its iPhones into mobile payment terminals. The acquisition set back the tech giant by $100 million, plus the iPhone maker will retain its employees according to Bloomberg.

 

MobeeWave has the technology that could help iPhone users process payment by tapping only either their smartphone or a credit card to another phone for payment processing using an NFC chip. Note that all iPhones since iPhone 6 have had NFC chips in them.

 

Apple Pay already lets shoppers pay with their iPhones via tapping at retail stores. However, integrating Apple devices with MobeeWave could allow iPhones to accept payments without using additional hardware like a card reader.

 

Apple’s big rivals, Samsung have also partnered with MobeeWave recently. In 2019, both companies collaborated on a pilot point-of-sale program in Canada.

 

Samsung’s venture division is also an investor in MobeeWave. The payments company raised up to US$20 million from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation in a Series B funding.

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This comes as big tech companies face US antitrust investigations for acquiring rivals in order to stifle competition.

 

Apple CEO Tim Cook in differentiating the company’s strategy said the companies focus was on acquiring companies to implement its own existing technology.

 

“If you look at the things behind the investigation, the things are acquisitions, and if you noticed, we didn’t get any questions on acquisitions because our approach on acquisitions has been to buy companies where we have challenges, and IP, and then make them a feature of the phone,” Cook said in an interview.

 

Basically, the acquisition of MobeeWave could help Apple implement existing technology in line with Cook’s statement.

 

Apple has already acquired several companies in 2020. The company recently bought weather app Dark Sky and virtual-reality content broadcasting company NextVR. It also bought Voysis, Xnor.ai and Inductiv which could improve Siri and artificial intelligence, and Fleetsmith for enterprise device management.

 

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