Apple Stock News:
On December 18th 2015 Apple Put out a press release stating that they have partnered with China UnionPay to bring Apple Pay to China. Allowing millions of Chinese consumers to quickly and securely make payments using their apple devices. Apple explains that Apple Pay will begin in China as early as 2016, they are just waiting to complete testing and for Chinese regulators to complete the necessary procedures.
The Press release reads: “China is an extremely important market for Apple and with China UnionPay and support from 15 of China’s leading banks, users will soon have a convenient, private and secure payment experience.” The Announcement also mentions that Apple will partner with 15 Chinese banks to use the service.
Although this is a major event for Apple and their mobile payment platform, there is already stiff competition in China. Currently, Alibaba currently holds 50% of the mobile payment market with their Alipay technology, the rest of the marketshare is held by Tenecent’s Tenpay, which holds about 20% and Baidu. Furthermore, Samsung also just announced that they will be introducing their mobile payment system into China, creating further competition.
According to research by Piper Jaffray, Apple Pay has created revenues of $118 million so far. Nomura estimates revenues from the service to reach $1.6 billion by 2017, evidence of the potential for Apple’s mobile payment system to show explosive growth.
