Can China's payment titans crack Hong Kong's mobile wallet market?

AlipayHK users have doubled to 1.5 million since March.

Reuters reports that the success of China’s payment giants in winning over the reluctant Hong Kong market will set the tone of their regional and global expansion plans as WeChat Pay and Alipay continue to chip against the dominance of stored value card Octopus.

Also read: Smart card dominance dampens Hong Kong's mobile payments growth

AliPayHK claims that its userbase has ballooned by 50% to 1.5 million in March whilst Visa claims that one in 10 Visa payments in Hong Kong were made using ApplePay, SamsungPay or GooglePay, doubling from a year earlier.

HSBC also said that it has hit the one million user mark for its peer-to-peer payments app PayMe.

A report by the Hong Kong Productivity Council notes that cash still reigns as the top payment option in Hong Kong with 99% patronage compared to the 20% who embrace mobile for their payment needs.

Against the residents’ refusal to part with cash, Hong Kong lags significantly behind China and Switzerland in cashless adoption as citizens do not treat their mobile devices as e-wallets.

Here’s more from Reuters:

Photo from Wuxxx790 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

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