Online and offline to eat Apple Pay today into China

The smartphone brand is accelerating the battle for mobile payments. After Samsung launched Samsung Pay and ZTE took out its own ZTE Pay, the powerful Apple launched the mobile payment solution Apple Pay into China Mobile Payment Jungle.

Guan Jian

[ApplePay, an NFC (Near Field Communication)-based mobile payment function released by Apple at the 2014 Apple Autumn New Product Launch Conference, was officially launched in the United States on October 20, 2014. At 5:00 am on February 18, 2016, the ApplePay business was launched in China. ]

After a long period of negotiations, the powerful Apple finally took its mobile payment solution ApplePay into China's mobile payment jungle, but this alien species can stir the pool spring water that has been occupied by Alipay and WeChat?

On February 18th, ApplePay will be officially launched in the Mainland, and will support 15 bank cards (credit cards and debit cards) such as Bank of China, China Construction Bank and China Merchants Bank. The "First Financial Daily" reporter confirmed that the first batch of connected merchants have both large foreign retail chains and cable platforms. Apple intends to take all the goods online and offline. Compared with the high-profile announcement of ApplePay's online news, Apple is unusually low-key.

Samsung on the other side also released news, and will soon launch SamsungPay's beta experience program in China for Android mobile phone users to pay for the card. Samsung's footsteps in Apple are also eyeing China's mobile payment market.

ApplePay is an NFC (Near Field Communication) mobile payment function launched from Apple iPhone6. Unlike Alipay's scan code payment method, it is equivalent to a "card package" that allows users to add a credit or debit card to the ApplePay and use a virtual bank card to identify the POS machine with flash payment by fingerprint. Pay.

Many years ago, UnionPay began to promote NFC-based payment methods, but subject to the constraints of the industry chain and user habits, it has not seen improvement, but it is an excellent opportunity for third-party payment institutions such as Alipay and WeChat to pay for code scanning. This time, I will continue to enter NFC with Apple. How many wins can I win? Will Apple be as crazy as BAT to cultivate user habits?

Apple will pay for new?

Analyst Ma Yi, senior analyst of Analysys International, told the reporter of China Business News that ApplePay is expected to drive a large number of Apple users who like to adopt early adopters. At present, the upgrade of terminal POS is not a problem, and UnionPay itself is also advancing. See if Apple can establish its own set of payment ecology and consumption scenarios. In the short term, this NFC payment method is unlikely to shake the existing mobile payment landscape.

"ApplePay has cooperated with many credit card companies in the United States to do some preferential activities, and the promotion speed is very fast." Huang Li (pseudonym), a lecturer at George Washington University in the United States, told the "First Financial Daily" reporter.

So, will Apple in the Chinese market follow the custom and bounce the BAT crazy subsidy policy? "At present, this is possible." In this regard, Analysys International senior analyst Ma Wei believes that the current domestic mobile payment market competition is too fierce, Alipay and WeChat have always spared no expense to subsidize merchants, to cultivate users to use mobile phone payment habits. Compared with scan code payment, NFC payment has a small market share in China, so Apple does not rule out the new way of subsidy.

But he also believes that Apple has always been confident in its brand influence, and may not be able to subsidize the Chinese market on a large scale like Alipay and WeChat.

Chinese and American markets are different

Talking about ApplePay's prospects in China, let's first look at how popular it is in the US. According to Huang Li, Apple mobile phones are quite common in the United States. ApplePay has a high penetration rate in shopping malls. Metro and public transportation systems do not support it. Therefore, people generally use ApplePay only when shopping. She likes to use it. It feels safe, but if New York, the business center, came to Washington, DC, where it is another scene. The popularity of the local ApplePay is not high, and many Starbucks do not support it. "It can only be said that ApplePay is used by some people, but it is not popular," she said.

In terms of payment habits, the biggest difference between the United States and China is the use of credit cards. Credit cards are deeply ingrained in the American concept of life. They buy credit cards almost when they buy anything. The consumption of a few dollars is also used to swiping cards, and generally no password is set. "(US) is more acceptable here (ApplePay), because the payment method is similar, all are credit cards, but ApplePay pays faster, which is a big change for the country." Huang Li said.

An Internet professional familiar with American business told the China Business News that in the United States, the relationship between ApplePay and some large chain retailers is more subtle. The latter seems to be more resistant to access to ApplePay. They prefer to use their own mobile development. Payment methods are paid at the cashier, such as Wal-Mart.

Before entering China, ApplePay launched in the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada after the United States went online.

The number of Apple phones with Chinese consumers above iPhone6 ​​is not high. How many ApplePay conversion rates can be used in this part of the user is difficult to predict.

Online and offline

In contrast, it seems that the more popular ApplePay online news release is the Chinese commercial bank rather than Apple itself. On February 15, Guangfa Bank, China Merchants Bank and China Construction Bank released a message through micro-signals and other channels, saying that ApplePay will be officially launched at 5:00 am on the 18th. Apple's mobile phone system version requires iOS9.2 or above, and AppleWatch requires version 2.1 or higher.


Apple's low-key is faced with an unusually high-profile mobile payment jungle, which is being held by both Alipay and WeChat Pay. The quarterly monitoring report of China's third-party mobile payment market (third quarter of 2015) shows that in the third quarter of 2015, the transaction volume of China's third-party mobile payment market reached 439.14 billion yuan, an increase of 26.39%. Among them, the Alipay market share was 71.51%, and the second place of Tenpay (WeChat payment, QQ wallet) was 15.99%, and the pattern was stable.

One of the challenges ApplePay faces in China is that there are no competitors like Alipay and WeChat payment in the European and American markets. In particular, Alipay quickly expanded its payment scenarios to supermarkets, shopping malls, restaurants, fast food chains, pharmacies and other fields in 2015.

Ma Wei told this reporter that ApplePay's entry into China will bring a wave of growth to NFC payments, but the core of the field is the construction of payment ecology and the spread of payment scenarios. In this regard, Alipay and WeChat have grasped the first-mover advantage, the layout is very deep, and user habits have been developed. Therefore, ApplePay will not have a big impact on the existing pattern of mobile payment in the short term.

It is worth noting that according to the "First Financial Daily" reporters to check and verify, Apple has to eat online and offline, in the ApplePay's first list of cooperative merchants, in addition to offline businesses, like the public comment, Vipshop Dangdang and other e-commerce companies and O2O companies are basically nailed. However, due to the relevant "non-disclosure agreement" agreement, the above-mentioned several company officials did not confirm this matter to this reporter. The list of cooperative merchants is expected to be announced by Apple on the 18th.