Apple Faces Tough Competition in China's $5.5 Trillion Mobile Payments Market
- Alipay, Tencent cover 90% of mobile payment users in China
- Low payment usage comes amid decline in iPhone market share
Apple Pay Faces Challenges in China
This article is for subscribers only.
Dong Ximiao was buying a meal at KFC in Hangzhou on a recent Sunday and pulled out his phone to pay, like everyone does in China, when the cashier asked: “Alipay or WeChat Pay?”
The problem was, Dong wanted to use Apple Pay for the 36 yuan ($5.20) bill, but the cashier told him she had never handled transactions before and wasn’t sure whether it was accepted at the fried-chicken outlet. “I knew for sure KFC stores accept it,” said Dong, 39, a researcher at Renmin University. “So I ended up teaching her step-by-step how to complete the transaction, and she was surprised at how easy it was.”