Mobile payment is huge in China. Statistics show the number of people who used mobile payments in China last year was higher than the entire US population. With big user numbers comes fierce competition among different payment providers.
This lucrative business has gotten even more complicated with the arrival of new players earlier this year. Zhong Shi takes a look at the market and the competitors vying for a piece of the pie.
The arrival of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay this year has added fuel to China’s competitive mobile payment market.
Just one day after its launch in February, Apple Pay was activated and connected to 30 million bank cards. Samsung Pay reacted quickly, becoming available to Chinese users one month later.
"Normally cell phone payment applications can work with about 30 percent of POS machines. Samsung Pay pretty much covers all of them," said Chen Liren, Vice President of Samsung China Internet App & Service Center.
Chinese smartphone brand Huawei is catching up, working with China UnionPay to promote its own Huawei Pay.
"Huawei Pay will go beyond bankcard payments to include payment for transportation, like paying for your bus or subway fare with your phone," said Zhang Fan from Huawei.
These payment providers are all eyeing China’s growing mobile payment market. In 2015, close to 360 million people made mobile payments. That’s more people than the entire US population.
The market is now dominated by two groups of players. The QuickPass family that are made up of the likes of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay and then the QR Code providers of AliPay and Wechat Wallet, which have so far won 80 percent of the market with 300 and 450 million users respectively.
But the QuickPass forces are new and ambitious.
When it comes to customers, some like this convenience store customer, are embracing the newer Apple Pay because it’s simply faster. Others, like this food deli-goer, enjoy the wider availability of Alipay.
Encouraged by the growing market, payment providers say they’ll fight to survive. But their fate is now in the hands of the users, who will determine if they’re here to stay.
