The Wall Street Journal reports Apple and Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba are reportedly in talks over a partnership to provide a mobile payments solution for China.
The comments were shared by Alibaba Executive Vice Chairman Joseph Tsai, who also noted that the partnership would focus on Apple’s presence in China and that the details are still being worked out.
If the talks bear fruit, we could see Alibaba’s “Alipay” electronic payments solution integrated with Apple Pay to provide a mobile payments solution for China. A few weeks back, Alibaba founder Jack Ma said that he was interesting in teaming up with Apple on an electronic payments solution.
Alipay is currently the largest mobile payments platform in the world, having replaced PayPal as the number one mobile payments processor earlier this year. The service boasts 300 million registered users, with 100 million mobile users.
Apple continues to look for ways to expand its footprint in China, opening a number of new retail stores in the country this year, along with finally striking a deal last year with the country’s biggest wireless carrier, China Mobile.
