Amidst the hoopla over new e-commerce and P2P features enabled on Google Wallet, it was easy to miss today's announcement that the Google Wallet for offline shopping was expanded to include new handsets.

The "old" Google Wallet — meaning the tap-to-pay, NFC-enabled version for use at brick-and-mortar stores — marks its second anniversary this month. To celebrate, Google is now making it available on the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4, the Samsung Galaxy Note II and the HTC One for Sprint subscribers, and on the Samsung Galaxy Note II for US Cellular customers.

That's not quite the big announcement expected for Google Wallet after news broke last week that plans to introduce a plastic companion card had been dropped from the product roadmap. Instead, Google announced services for online and P2P payments using Google Wallet.

There was also no expansion of carriers offering Google Wallet. The three carriers behind Isis — AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA — are still blocking download of the Google Wallet app to their subscribers citing concerns over security.  

Read more about NFC/Contactless payments.