TechNode reported that Alipay transaction volume over Golden Week holiday more than doubles from last year.
Alipay, the payment arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has released new statistics about this year’s Chinese National Day Golden Week (黄金周, the week-long public holiday from October 1 to 7). As expected, mobile payment saw heightened traction during the holiday. In a press release, Alipay claimed that its platform processed 2.2 times as many in-store transactions overseas over the past week compared to last year.
Overseas spending through the Alipay app also grew significantly with Asia continuing at the top spending destinations for Alipay users. Hong Kong retained its top spot from last year’s ranking and Thailand also retained its position as second favorite spending destination, company data shows. Japan rose to become the third most popular destination in terms of transaction volume.
The increase is also partly due to more vendors accepting AliPay overseas. Regardless, it’s still an impressive figure. The preference for Chinese tourists to pay digitally is pushing more overseas vendors to adopt Alipay and WeChat Pay. This helps the two services to expand internationally.
Leave a Reply