Tencent’s WeChat Pay and Alibaba’s Alipay are the two most popular mobile payment platforms in China. Recently, the “interconnection” of the two major mobile payment platforms has made new progress. Taobao has opened a small range of WeChat Pay functions for internal testing and has introduced two WeChat Pay payment methods to the payment options.
Why it matters
At a press conference in September 2021, Zhao Zhiguo, spokesperson for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, stated that “interconnection” is an inevitable choice for the high-quality development of the Internet industry, and that the industry is also striving to ensure a smooth and safe online experience.
“If Tencent’s payment products are successfully introduced into Alibaba’s ecosystem, it means WeChat Pay has expanded into an important online shopping scenario. For Alibaba, having a payment option for Taobao users will help improve the user experience,” said Wang Pengbo, senior financial analyst at Broadcom Consulting.
Context
It is not the first time that Alibaba’s App has had access to WeChat Pay. As early as the end of September 2021, several Ali’s apps: online food delivery platform Ele.me, video hosting service Youku, used goods platform Xianyu, and other apps have applied for access to WeChat payment.
Since 2021, Chinese authorities have gradually strengthened their supervision over unhealthy competition between these Internet platforms, focusing on the rectification of malicious blocking of website links and interference with the operation of other enterprises’ products or services.
