Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) just reached a deal with UnionPay, a Chinese-based payment card program which allows the country’s consumers to make payments in the App Store.
UnionPay has a monopoly in the Chinese market with over 4.5 billion cards in the country. It provides a huge opportunity for Apple to really take on the China market.
Apple partners with Union Pay
The senior vice president of Internet Marketing and Services, Eddy Cue offered, “China is already our second largest market for app downloads, and now we’re providing users with an incredibly convenient way to purchase their favorite apps with just one-tap.”
The Cupertino-based tech giant recently unveiled Apple Pay, a new program that simplifies payments while keeping the consumer’s financial information safer. There is a lot of anticipation for Apple Pay’s arrival in China. This new announcement could be very significant. China happens to be Apple’s third largest market, trailing behind the United States and Europe. China generated a total of $29.8 billion which is roughly 16% of the fourth quarter’s entire revenue.
Last week, there were reports Apple wanted to work with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA), a huge online retailer in China.which already built its own payment system dubbed Alipay. The company’s co-founder even admitted that he would love to work with Apple for a partnership. Joseph Tsai (the company’s other co-founder recently opened up to The Wall Street Journal more about the matter.
Bringing Apple Pay To China
He explained if people wanted to use Apple Pay in China, but there would be certain limitations and restrictions for operating businesses in the country. They are hoping there will be an opportunity for Apple and Alipay to work together. The latter is a part of Ant Financial which means Lucy Peng’s business development team are in talks with business. He added AliPay is looking at linking accounts with Apple Pay. He explained, “If you are talking about Alipay as the back-end operation to support the front-end Apple Pay, how do the two systems work?”
