Apple Pay begins in China

Apple launched its mobile payment service in China this week and is already in virtual wallets than 30 million users in the country only on the first day of service. However, although the figures seem encouraging, analysts believe that the Cupertino company will not be able to shake the Chinese market in the short-term sector.



There are 19 banks that allow their Chinese customers to use Apple Pay in stores that have the necessary equipment for transactions with an iOS device. In the eyes of regulators, the service's debut had a brilliant performance and the banks helped the company in the disclosure through promotional campaigns.

However, China is a major challenge. The fifth country in the world to receive the service from Apple has been regarded as a huge market in the mobile payment service, Alipay dominated by the service, the giant Alibaba, and by Tenpay, Tencent Holdings Ltd. Together, these two services only control about 70% of the market.


According to analysts, a partnership between Apple Pay, UnionPay and banks, can bring back a slice that Alipay and Tenpay rivals have won in China.

The Apple service is able to offer more comfort to users in relation to competitors, and since Apple Pay can allow iOS devices to communicate with the sale of systems using an NFC antenna, the US Apple can work with existing terminals. Then the UnionPay terminals can help expand their coverage.

For these reasons, a "insider" of the regulation department believes that cooperation between UnionPay, Apple Pay and banks offer challenges to Tecent and Alibaba. But industry insiders say that Cupertino will not change China's industry standard in the short term. Another analyst added that Alipay and Tenpay have huge user bases, and Alipay users reach the number of 400 million, which makes 30 million of Apple, in fact, little challenging.

However, this is only the beginning of the first chapter of the story, and will be a good race on the grounds of the Great Wall.