The staged global rollout continued today, going live the in the 2nd largest economy.
Apple launched its mobile wallet over a year ago, but it is still not doing well in Apple’s native US. But its expansion to China, the fifth country to get Apple Pay, could be different. Chinese consumers are used to mobile payments, thanks to Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s Tenpay—the overwhelmingly dominant players of the country’s $90 billion mobile payments industry.
Mercator Advisory Group anticipates consumer uptake of Apple Pay will indeed outstrip that in the U.S. due to existing familiarity with mobile payments in China and a wider range of locations enabled for NFC transactions. However, it remains to be seen how quickly, if at all, that Apple Pay is able dethrone indigenous mobile payment enabler Alibaba as the method of choice.
Overview by Joe Walent, Senior Analyst, Emerging Technologies Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
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