vritti
Mobilution
March 2018
11
— Manoj Machiraju
If we look at China probably 6-7 years back, it was cash that
ruled, with only a few people using cards and mobile payments.
But, today, if we talk about mobile payments, the first country
that comes to our mind is China. There was a swift and big
jump in the way the Chinese handled their day-to-day financial
transactions. Without even getting used to plastic cards, many
Chinese jumped directly to mobile payments apps for shopping
to eating to travel to booking tickets.
This quantum shift has been facilitated by two major Chinese companies – Ant Financials
and Tencent. Both of them came up with their own versions of mobile payments apps for day
to day payments as well as electronic money transfers using a mobile phone. Since then, mobile
payments have grown to $ 5.5 Mn which is 50 times the size of the same in US market.
Though this is such a big opportunity in China, only Alipay and Wechat Pay hold 94% of the
market share, as they have leveraged their existing market for mobile payments.