Internet and mobile payment services have spread like wildfire in China over the last two years, filling the gap which existed in the formerly cash-dominant society for the safe and secure transfer of money and electronic payments. China has only a very limited credit and debit card infrastructure, offering an opening for mobile payments unseen in most other major consumer economies.
China's internet payments have grown at a rate of above 5% per quarter since 2015, now totaling nearly 5.9 trillion yuan (US$885 billion) each quarter.
The online payment space is dominated by Alipay and UnionPay, the former of which is owned by e-commerce giant Alibaba, and the latter of which built China's POS card infrastructure before moving into online payments.
In addition to these two, which between them account for more than half (53.6%) of the market, Tencent Finance (which owns WeChat and its attendant payment software) is the only other provider to top 10% market share, with...
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