Alibaba has certainly given arch-rival PayPal something to be worried about. E-commerce giant claims that its mobile-payment service, Alipay, has snagged the top spot as the world biggest mobile payment player with total transactions valued at $150 billion (900 billion Yuan) for 2013.
There is no disputing that Alipay is undoubtedly the world’s No. 1. How? The equation is straightforward. Even when put together, the payment volume of US-based Square Inc and ebay’s PayPal, comes second to Alipay’s turnover.
By 2013 end, the Chinese firm had more than 300 million registered users; including one third who use their mobile devices to access Alipay’s services. Driven by mobile growth, mobile settlements experience a rapid expansion in the world’s most populous country last year; a whopping $200 billion according to iResearch.
In concrete terms, Alipay’s users made 2.78 billion transactions in 2013 and by the second quarter of last year, Alibaba’s affiliate company had already outnumbered US competitor, PayPal. Currently, Alibaba has laid claim on 80% of China’s internet shopping market but this figure is set to grow as China has over 618 million internet users.
Since the beginning of the year, daily payments on Alipay’s platform have already hit 18 million, compared to 12 million settlements in December 2013. If things continue to look bright, analysts believe that Alibaba, currently valued between $115 billion and $200 billion, will start to sell shares and become the largest initial public offering (IPO) since Facebook.
Source: Reuters
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