China spends more than ever on Alipay amid mobile payments boom

The app's main rival is WeChat and Apple Pay, reports Tech in Asia

Alipay, China’s top mobile wallet app, hit record highs in 2016 for the amount its 450 million users spent online or in stores. The app’s biggest group of spenders, the people of Shanghai, paid out an average $20,400 last year, said the Alibaba spin-off company today.

Those Shanghai shoppers spent 1.5 times more than in 2015.

The average middle class wage in Shanghai is $35,000, but this doesn’t account for undisclosed income such as from property rented out.

The app’s main rival is WeChat, which contains features for online and in-store cashless payments. Apple Pay is another contender.

Hey big spender

The new trove of data comes weeks after the app hit a record high of 1 billion transactions in a single day.

Some other highlights from Alipay’s year:

• 71% of Alipay transactions were conducted on mobile devices, up from 2015’s 65%.

• Cash-strapped millennials, in China classified as those born in the 1990s, spent an average of $1,080 through the app.

• Gen Y, those born in the 1990s, averaged $1,590.

• Top ten destinations outside China where Alipay was used for in-store shopping: South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, and Germany. The company has been getting airports, major malls, and top restaurants on board so that China’s record 133 million overseas tourists can still use the app.

• The single biggest overseas spender splurged $38,900.

2.3 billion Alipay transactions were put on the slate by using the built-in Ant Credit Pay, allowing for payment in installments, up 344% from 2015.

• Alipay’s small loans service, Jiebei, issued loans worth $43.4 billion to 12 million users.

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This is an excerpt from the article published on Tech In Asia. You can read the full article here.