Apple has made it known that China is considered to be a key market of theirs, which is why the Cupertino company has been focusing trying to bring its products and services into the Chinese market as soon as possible. Now we had heard that the company was planning to bring Apple Pay to China via a partnership with UnionPay, but it looks like Swatch has beat them to it.
Swatch, which is a company many of you guys might associate with watches, has recently announced a new watch called the Swatch Bellamy. This isn’t a smartwatch, at least not by today’s definition. It is a regular analog timepiece but it also comes with a built-in chip that allows customers to pay for products while shopping.
This is thanks to deals the company has managed to strike up with the likes of UnionPay and Bank of Communications. This deal was actually struck up earlier in March, with Swatch’s CEO Nick Hayek stating that the company planned on integrating more smart features into its watches and its bands, with NFC being a prime example of that.
This allows the company to keep making regular watches but with added functionality that will be useful and relevant in today’s hi-tech society. As for why would the Chinese market opt for a regular watch instead of a more fancy smartwatch? According to Ben Cavender, a senior analyst at Shanghai-based China Market Research Group, “Watches are still absolutely a status symbol in China,” something that Swatch can no doubt capitalize on.
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