Category: Mobile Commerce

China is becoming an attractive mobile payments market for Apple

Apple is looking to bring its new mobile payments service to China, which has become a very powerful mobile shopping market. The company has officially launched Apple Pay in the United Kingdom, hoping for the country to be the first success in its gradual progression into other countries with its mobile payments plans. Apple has been considering breaking into the Chinese market since May of this year, when the company began speaking to Alibaba and several Chinese banks.

Apple may soon begin to compete with Alibaba

Earlier this year, it appeared that Apple had intended to partner with Alipay, Alibaba’s mobile payments unit. No official announcement have been made to this effect, however, and Apple may opt to partner directly with banks instead, which may be quite complicated. Alibaba will be a formidable competitor for Apple, however, as the company has already established a very powerful position in the Chinese’s financial sector. Alibaba is one of the largest retailers in the country and has beaten out many others when it comes to mobile payments.

Chinese consumers have a great deal of love for mobile payments

Mobile payments have become quite important for consumers in China. Many consumers have begun to rely on their mobile devices to get their shopping done, as this represents a more convenient way to purchase products. A growing number of retailers in China are beginning to support mobile payments in their physical stores, which is something that many consumers have been demanding for some time.

Competition in China expected to grow in coming years

Competition in China’s mobile payments space is relatively low, largely due to companies like Alibaba establishing a massive market share. This is expected to change in the coming years, however, as more companies begin showing interest in the mobile market. Apple, in particular, believes that China could be a very prominent opportunity for its mobile payments endeavors. Apple has already expressed interest in the Chinese market, but has yet to unveil any specific plans to bring Apple Pay to the country.

The recent announcement that these two giants were partnering together has also revealed a plan for transactions.

Verifone recently revealed that it was entering into a deal with Barclays that would have the two companies working together, and now it has stated that it will be integrating with Pingit, the British banking giant’s mobile payments technology.

This would bring the smartphone payments service to retailers that use Verifone’s transaction services.

This means that it will bring mobile payments together for Pingit’s 20,000 clients and add on the 70,000 businesses in the U.K. who are already Verifone transaction service customers. This could potentially be a stepping stone for the companies that could take the services more broadly throughout Europe. According to June Felix, the president of Verifone Europe, “What prompted the partnership, was a focus on Verifone’s part to help our retailer clients to enable commerce through every channel possible, whether it’s mobile, terminal or Web.”

The partnership sets the stage for a broad scale expansion of mobile payments that could occur quite quickly.

Felix explained that Barclays is “very innovative and very well-established player in terms of consumer payment,” when taking into consideration its solid position in the United Kingdom, which is already among the largest European markets. She also pointed out that Pingit provides a “unique value proposition.”

By partnering with Barclays for its smartphone payments transactions to add the option to the Verifone physical countertop terminals, it makes it possible for Verifone to step outside its previous confines of those terminals into mobile shopping areas. This is an angle that it has never before been able to take.

It also remains a type of transaction of which many consumers remain completely unaware. With large names such as these, there is the potential to change that in the United Kingdom, so that consumers will learn about the technology and choose whether or not they want to use it.

Verifone isn’t without its experience in mobile payments, as – according to Felix – the company was “very involved” in the entry of Apple Pay into the United Kingdom’s marketplace. “The partnership with Pingit is really very consistent with that,” she said.