According to a May 2019 Ipsos report, close to half (47%) the amount of living expenses among proximity mobile payment users in urban areas of China was spent via third-party mobile payments in Q1 2019. That’s 15 percentage points higher than in Q4 2018. During the same period, the transaction value share of cash dropped from 26% to 19%.
Proximity mobile payments are widely used in offline retail—again, often by a simple QR code scan. Among mobile payment users, some of the most common places for such payments were at supermarkets and convenience stores (62.5%), shopping malls (50.5%) and even street stalls (45.8%).
Mobile payment apps are not merely one-dimensional tools for payment; they now offer other services as well. For example, a popular feature on Alipay and WeChat Pay enables diners to make reservations and prepay for meals before arriving at restaurants.
The activities users conduct on mobile payment services include digital purchases (66.4%), paying bills (52.9%), topping off accounts (51.9%), sending peer-to-peer payments (38.3%) and purchasing online wealth management products (21.2%), according to a July 2018 iiMedia Research survey.