According to a report by the iResearch Consulting Group, it has been indicated that the total size of third-party mobile payment transactions in China reduced for the first time in the first quarter of 2020 to RMB53.2 trillion (RM32.39 trillion), a four percent drop compared to the same period last year as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Despite the drop, data from 2020 Q1 Chinese Third-party Mobile Payments Market Report shows that Ant Group’s Alipay has retained its leadership position with a steady increase over the last four quarters, rising to 55.4 percent market share, a 1.6 percent increase year-on-year. Tencent’s Tenpay which owns WeChat Pay and QQ Wallet comes in second with a market share of 38.8 percent.
Prior to Covid-19, China’s offline businesses had been a key driver for mobile payments with a majority of businesses however with lockdown restriction in place, offline businesses were forced to close or severely limit their businesses, leading to the offline barcode transactions dropping by 30.4 percent from the previous quarter, to RMB6.7 trillion (RM4.08 trillion).
As China’s economy start to show signs of recovery, iResearch anticipates the Chinese digital payment market to rebound in the second quarter of 2020. The report also points out that third-party payment solution providers should look beyond payment volume alone, and work on their capability to integrate and offer consumers and business clients, additional technology solutions within their applications that can be viewed as instrumental to the market moving forward.
In a LinkedIn post, Alipay said “Payment is not the end game, but the beginning of a wide range of services that enrich daily life. We are dedicated to supporting the digital transformation of the services industry by leveraging our technologies, instead of just focusing on the payment market share.”
