FeliCa
FeliCa is a contactless RFID smart card system from Sony in Japan, primarily used in electronic money cards. The name stands for Felicity Card. First utilized in the Octopus card system in Hong Kong,[1] the technology is used in a variety of cards also in countries such as Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, Macau, the Philippines and the United States.
Mobile FeliCa[edit]
Mobile FeliCa is a modification of FeliCa for use in mobile phones by FeliCa Networks[1], a subsidiary company of both NTT DoCoMo and Sony. DoCoMo has developed a wallet phone concept based on Mobile FeliCa and has developed a wide network of partnerships and business models. au and SoftBank (former Vodafone Japan) have also licensed mobile FeliCa from FeliCa Networks.
The Osaifu-Keitai (おサイフケータイ) system (literal translation: "wallet-phone") was developed by NTT DoCoMo, and introduced in July 2004 and later licensed to Vodafone and au, which introduced the product in their own mobile phone ranges under the same name. Using Osaifu-Keitai, multiple FeliCa systems (such as Suica and Edy) can be accessed from a single mobile phone. On January 28, 2006, au introduced Mobile Suica which is used primarily on the railway networks owned by JR East.
On September 7, 2016, Apple announced Apple Pay now features FeliCa technology. Users who purchased iPhone 7 or Apple Watch Series 2 in Japan can now add Suica cards into their Apple Pay wallets and tap their devices just like regular Suica cards.[6][7] Users can either transfer the balance from a physical Suica card to the Apple Pay wallet, or create a virtual Suica card in the wallet from the JR East application.[8] On September 12, 2017, Apple announced new iPhone 8, iPhone X, iPhone XR and Apple Watch Series 3 models featuring "Global FeliCa", i.e. NFC-F and licensed FeliCa middleware incorporated in all devices sold worldwide, not just ones sold in Japan.[9]
On October 9, 2018, Google announced that its latest Pixel device, the Pixel 3, would support FeliCa in models purchased in Japan. This feature enables support for WAON, Suica, and various other FeliCa-based services through Google Pay and the Osaifu-Keitai system. Successor models including the 3a and 4 have the same support of Mobile Felica in Japan-sold models.