Apple Inc launched its mobile payment system in China on Thursday in a bid to convince the hundreds of millions of users of the country’s entrenched, dominant services to switch.
Apple Inc launched its mobile payment system in China on Thursday in a bid to convince the hundreds of millions of users of the country’s entrenched, dominant services to switch. “We think China could be our largest Apple Pay market,” Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay, told Reuters in an interview in Beijing.
In an early boost, China’s biggest lender, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd, was among the banks that said earlier this week that customers would be able to use Apple Pay from Thursday.
However, Apple Pay has not had an easy ride so far in China, the fifth country to get the service. Even in its US home market, Apple has faced sceptical retailers in its effort to develop a new revenue stream. China is not likely to prove any easier to crack.
“People switch applications for significantly better experiences, it (Apple) has to deliver not just a little bit more secure, or a little bit easier to use,” said Mark Natkin, founder of Marbridge Consulting. Greater China is Apple’s second-largest market by revenue, and the world’s biggest smartphone market. By the end of 2015, 358 million people, more than the US population, had already taken to buying goods and services by mobile phone, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.
