They’ve conquered shops and cafes; now WeChat Pay and Alipay are taking the fight to China’s trains
Tencent’s platform is set to break rival Alipay’s four-year dominance of train ticket purchases as the battle moves to a new arena
The turf war between China’s two biggest mobile payments providers has moved to a new frontier: trains.
From November, passengers will be able to buy their train tickets using WeChat Pay on the official booking website, 12306.cn and its mobile app, according to China Railway, the national operator.
The move breaks the four-year dominance of Alipay over mobile payments in China’s multibillion-dollar train ticket booking market.
China Railway said the addition of WeChat Pay will “further diversify payment methods for train ticket purchases".
WeChat Pay is owned by Hong Kong-listed Tencent Holdings, the world's largest video games company by revenue and currently, Asia's most valuable company.
Alipay is a unit of financial technology powerhouse Ant Financial Services Group, an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding. New York-traded e-commerce giant Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
The stakes are high for the mobile payment service that attracts the most bookings: official data shows the country’s railways carried 2.81 billion passengers in 2016, up 11 per cent from the previous year.