As it stands, Apple Pay is only available in the US. It took quite a while but eventually it expanded to the UK, although we had heard word that Apple was planning on bringing the feature to China. The Cupertino company considers China one of their key markets, and given the rate that Apple’s products have been flying off the shelves, it is pretty obvious why.
That being said according to a recent report from The Wall Street Journal, it seems that Apple is pretty close to finally bringing Apple Pay to China. Apparently this is due to Apple registering an entity in the Shanghai free-trade zone which will then be used to operate the Apple Pay business, or so the reports claim.
According to people familiar with the matter, the registration of the entity will “bring Apple Pay, considered as a new type of business, new model and new technology, into China.” Unsurprisingly when reached out to comment on the report, an Apple spokeswoman declined to offer any.
Last we heard, Apple was struggling to bring their mobile payments service into China. This is said to be due to Chinese financial institutions who were worried about Apple Pay, also due to regulatory concerns. It was then suggested that Apple might have to team up with local partners like Alibaba if they wanted to gain entry into the Chinese market.
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