China Payments News & AnalysisAlipay's International (Non)-Business

Alipay's International (Non)-Business

As my colleague Boaz has mentioned in a previous post , Alipay's overseas expansion is not going as smoothly as planned. I have take a closer look into Alipay's international business and found the following tidbits:

1. Alipay's international merchants consist mostly of retailers from cosmetics, fashion, personal electronics based in Hong Kong and Taiwan. To a certain degree, this "international market" is largely limited to Greater China, not too much about America and Europe, i.e. a broader sense of international market.

As my colleague Boaz has mentioned in a previous post , Alipay's overseas expansion is not going as smoothly as planned. I have take a closer look into Alipay's international business and found the following tidbits:

1. Alipay's international merchants consist mostly of retailers from cosmetics, fashion, personal electronics based in Hong Kong and Taiwan. To a certain degree, this "international market" is largely limited to Greater China, not too much about America and Europe, i.e. a broader sense of international market.

2. Only some of Alipay's international merchant partners advertise the Alipay logo on their website. Some of Alipay's merchants seem to not attach importance to the cooperation with Alipay, which may indicate that their cooperation with Alipay does not currently bring significant revenue.

3. On Alipay's Japanese merchant partners' websites, the language is in Japanese. Few Chinese can understand Japanese and if the shopping site is in Japanese, I see little value in Alipay's Japanese partnerships.


While Alipay has announced their presence in international markets, it seems clear that their overseas partnerships will take much more time to mature.  In this sense, analyzing Alipay's market presence remains limited to the domestic market, not the international market.

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