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Apple is somewhat allied with AliPay. You can pay your AppStore purchase bill with AliPay in China.

• Bakary 9y ago
  That's quite interesting to hear. In my anecdotal experience, it seems Alipay is more integrated than WeChat in terms of online payments as it appears to have far more sophisticated features and support across a wide variety of merchants and institutions, even if WeChat is itself unassailable as a whole and is of course primarily a communication app rather than a payment one. For instance, after a year of wandering around, meeting merchants who did not support AliPay was a very rare occurrence but I frequently found several who did not use WeChat pay, although this is likely to change given the lightning speed at which these things seems to work in China. Even beggars on the streets have given me AliPay codes to scan. This makes me wonder what the terms of the alliance between Apple and Alipay are. I don't use their appstore but would Apple be in trouble without it?
  • ttflee 9y ago
    > Even beggars on the streets have given me AliPay codes to scan. While I personally use either that applies, my observation is that WeChat Pay QR code is more frequently supported by grass-roots merchants like food vans etc. These WeChatPay QR codes are not for formal accounts that are supposed to receive purchase payment but personal accounts, rendering the payment a little shady, though AliPay also supports such transactions. I doubt some of these merchants do now own any AliPay accounts before they start WeChat Pay but they do have WeChat installed as it has been the dominant mobile social platform. An interesting rumor is that WeChat Pay is less ubiquitous in Hangzhou where the headquarter of Alibaba is located, and vice versa for AliPay in Shenzhen.