Revamped Google Wallet to battle Apple Pay from May?

Google is readying up a second version of its mobile payments wallet service in hopes of fending off Apple Pay, sources have revealed.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is planning to unveil its Google Wallet 2.0 at the annual Google I/O developer conference in May.

Unfortunately, it seems Google is struggling to get third-parties on board. This had reportedly led to the tech firm resorting to offering up greater revenue shares in an effort to woo companies into joining the Google Wallet fold.

“The Internet-search giant is trying to marshal an unruly coalition of device makers, wireless carriers, banks, and payment networks to shape a new version of its Google Wallet payment service, in some cases by offering them more revenue,” reads the report.

Related: What is LoopPay? How Samsung will take on Apple Pay

Google launched its Wallet service back in 2011, allowing Android smartphone users in the USA to pay for goods in brick-and-mortar retail outlets with contactless NFC tech.

Apple Pay, meanwhile, launched late last year, and has seen significantly more substantial uptake than its Google-powered rival despite being live for a shorter time.

This is in part due to the fact that Google has found it difficult to get wireless carriers and manufacturers on board with Google Wallet, and has yet to roll out the service worldwide.

That’s thanks to the massive fragmentation of the Android platform, which means Google has significantly less control over the handsets that actually run its OS relative to Apple and its iOS.

What’s more, Samsung has just bought out mobile payments service LoopPay in hopes of developing its own Apple Pay competitor platform.

This service is expected to land alongside next month’s Samsung Galaxy S6 launch, prior to Google’s re-launch of Wallet.

This is likely to throw another spanner in Google’s Wallet works, as Samsung is one of the biggest Android smartphone suppliers globally.