Now the individuals in China have one more expedient mode to pay for songs and apps from Apple. Support is added by the company for WeChat Pay, a well-liked payments platform from the Chinese messaging application, to the Apple Music and App Store in the country.
Apple, in an official statement, said, “We are happy to provide users in the mainland China the alternative of WeChat Pay for their preferred Apple Music products or mobile app. We carry on being devoted to offering multiple easy and suitable payment modes for users within the Apple ecosystem.”
However, the move demonstrates the ongoing struggle of Apple to push the extent of Apple Pay services in China, which as per the evaluations only has around 1% market share of the mobile payments in the country.
Above all this, WeChat’s owner Tencent and Apple, as per a report, have been in a succinct association of late. WeChat—that has an active monthly user base of around 950 Million—has recently rolled out a “mini-program” system enabling individuals to include several of these “mini programs” to the WeChat application.
As per the report, Apple perceives these efforts of WeChat as rivalry to its App Store and has formerly pursued 30% usual cut it receives from the applications in App Store. Earlier this month, in the conference call, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, said the firm values WeChat, which is among its “best and biggest” developers.
Nevertheless, the inclusion of WeChat Pay can further assist Apple push sales on the App Store and Apple Music. Last year, the company assisted support for AliPay, at the moment the biggest mobile payment service. However, as per the figures from research organizations, WeChat Pay is rapidly closing in on the gap. It is at present projected to have a market share of 40% in the mobile payment services in the country whereas Apple has only around 1% of the pie.
Chinese state media pronounced the broadcast as Apple “lowering its head to Tencent.” On the other hand, another channel said, “Come come come, every dog will have his day. Now it’s [Tencent’s] Pony’s turn to get the 30 percent fee.”###
