Category: Apps

M-commerce revenues at Alibaba have grown by 192 percent

| February 5, 2016

The Chinese retail giant has managed to solidly secure the top spot title for itself in mobile shopping.

Following a massively successful Singles’ Day over m-commerce at Alibaba, it was already clear that the company had risen to the top when it came to mobile shopping, but now some more specific statistics have been revealed to show exactly how successful that company has become when it comes to catering to smartphone using consumers.

The third quarter earnings at Alibaba had already confirmed that it was well in the lead of mobile retail.

The company, itself, confirmed its position in the lead of m-commerce when it described just how much mobile shopping has had an impact on the business at its overall marketplace. Even though China has been facing some economic struggles, the retailer was still able to show exactly how powerful mobile commerce could be in not only obtaining new customers but also retaining them. It was able to build its active shopper base by over 5 percent, which equated to over 21 million within the one quarter containing Singles’ Day.

Essentially, when it comes to m-commerce, the CEO, Danial Zhang said it best, “We’re crushing mobile.”

Alibaba - M-CommerceHe made this rather astute statement while speaking at a call with analysts. Zhang was far from exaggerating, when taking into consideration that the revenues the company has earned within the Chinese marketplace have increased by 35 percent when compared to the year before. This represents a rise to $4.43 billion in earnings over where it had been in 2014. That said, when looking at mobile commerce, specifically, the company saw an astounding 192 percent growth in its revenues, bringing it to about $2.89 billion.

The revenue growth of the company, as a whole, was around 32 percent during the quarter, which saw about $5.33 billion. Of the profits reached approximately $1.9 billion during that single quarter.

There was a growth in the number of active buyers on the overall retail marketplaces owned by Alibaba, which brought the total figure to 407 million within that quarter. The number of active m-commerce shoppers reached 393 million during that quarter. That meant that there were 47 million more than the quarter before.

Barclays accidentally revealed UK launch of Apple Pay

| February 1, 2016

The bank from the United Kingdom let it slip that the mobile payments service will be available in March.

U.K. bank, Barclays, has accidentally let it slip that Apple Pay is not just headed to its customers but that it is known exactly when it will be arriving and, according to the large financial institution, that will be in March.

The bank been the only major financial institution in the U.K. that hasn’t supported Apple’s mobile payments.

Customers at Barclays were the only ones with accounts at a large bank in the country that didn’t have the NFC technology based mobile payments from Apple Pay available to them. The service first became available last year in July, but the bank chose not to support those contactless payments for its iPhone carrying customers. However, the bank has now inadvertently provided confirmation that it will be arriving in March.

It was the CEO who accidentally let the release date of Apple Pay slip, when replying to an impatient customer’s email.

Surprising Reveal Regarding Apple PayAshok Vaswani, the CEO of Barclays, replied to an impatient customer’s email on January 12, giving confirmation that it would become possible to use an iPhone to complete mobile payments transactions within “60 to 75 days” of that time. That slip was all it took to provide a solid idea of when Apple’s mobile wallet would become available to customers of the bank as that is the only wallet app that is supported by the iPhone.

If Vaswani’s range of dates is accurate, it will mean that the iPhone’s mobile wallet will become available to Barclays customers at some point between March 13 and March 28. Still, despite the slip, the bank has yet to actually issue an official confirmation of the dates.

This will have Barclays joining Lloyds, Halifax, and every other large bank in the United Kingdom in offering Apple Pay to iPhone using customers. The reason for the delay in supporting the mobile wallet has not been offered by the bank. That said, it has been implied that there has been a disagreement between Apple and the bank with regards to the terms of supporting the service.