On December 20th Alipay issued a press release announcing a cooperation agreement with Philliou Selwanes Partners to promote the acceptance of Alipay's services to North American merchants.
Alipay, which is one of China's leading third-party payment providers has recently been focusing on expansion to overseas markets, namely Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and now the US.
According to a recent article in Digitimes , Alipay expansion to markets outside China is not going according to plan:
Alipay, the largest platform to provide third-party electronic payment service in China, began its operation in the Taiwan market around the end of November 2007 with a goal of attracting 100 online store operators to use its service by the end of 2007, but the number of users was quite far below the target as of the end of 2007
and the reasons being:
Alipay's less than expected attractiveness to operators of online stores in Taiwan is because potential customers in China are generally not aware of merchandise available for online sale in Taiwan... The Chinese government has not yet allowed Chinese tourists to directly visit Taiwan and some websites in Taiwan are blocked from access in China...
Alipay has launched yet another co-branded debit card a few days ago. Along with the Dragon Card launched over a year ago, Alipay users can now apply for the Taobao Green Card.
We have previously reported on Alipay’s Multi-Channel Payment Options that include online bank transfers, cash remittance through China Post, and credit card substitutes in the form of Alipay co-branded debit cards.
Maverick China was quoted in an article by Bruce Einhorn and Chi-Chu Tschang entitled "Psst! Wanna Buy an iPhone? ":
China Mobile is the world's largest cellular carrier, with 369 million subscribers, equal to a 70% market share of the mainland. "There is no need for it to make the kind of deal that American and European operators have been making," says Dave Carini, an analyst with the Beijing-based research firm Maverick China.
No. 2 operator China Unicom probably isn't much of an option for Apple, though..."I'm not sure that Apple would want to lock itself into a deal with what is clearly the weaker operator in the market," says Carini. "Apple is very conscious of its image."
