Tag: china

Apple may bring its mobile payments service to China

China is becoming an attractive mobile payments market for Apple

Apple is looking to bring its new mobile payments service to China, which has become a very powerful mobile shopping market. The company has officially launched Apple Pay in the United Kingdom, hoping for the country to be the first success in its gradual progression into other countries with its mobile payments plans. Apple has been considering breaking into the Chinese market since May of this year, when the company began speaking to Alibaba and several Chinese banks.

Apple may soon begin to compete with Alibaba

Earlier this year, it appeared that Apple had intended to partner with Alipay, Alibaba’s mobile payments unit. No official announcement have been made to this effect, however, and Apple may opt to partner directly with banks instead, which may be quite complicated. Alibaba will be a formidable competitor for Apple, however, as the company has already established a very powerful position in the Chinese’s financial sector. Alibaba is one of the largest retailers in the country and has beaten out many others when it comes to mobile payments.

Chinese consumers have a great deal of love for mobile payments

Mobile Payments - Apple and ChinaMobile payments have become quite important for consumers in China. Many consumers have begun to rely on their mobile devices to get their shopping done, as this represents a more convenient way to purchase products. A growing number of retailers in China are beginning to support mobile payments in their physical stores, which is something that many consumers have been demanding for some time.

Competition in China expected to grow in coming years

Competition in China’s mobile payments space is relatively low, largely due to companies like Alibaba establishing a massive market share. This is expected to change in the coming years, however, as more companies begin showing interest in the mobile market. Apple, in particular, believes that China could be a very prominent opportunity for its mobile payments endeavors. Apple has already expressed interest in the Chinese market, but has yet to unveil any specific plans to bring Apple Pay to the country.

5G mobile technology definition underway between the E.U. and China

These two regions are working together to decide on the details of this upcoming tech.

The European Union and China have now agreed to work together in order to be able to come up with a working definition for 5G mobile technology, which is a term that is already heavily used despite the fact that it has not yet been properly define.

So far, there hasn’t been a great deal of agreement that has occurred as a standard understanding of 5G.

Among the only things upon which everyone can agree when it comes to defining 5G mobile technology is that it is what will be built and purchased as the next phase after 4G. Therefore, any agreement that will occur between the E.U. and China could be quite an important one. The agreement will be an expansion of the foundation that occurred between the E.U. and South Korea, back in June 2014, as well as another one that was signed in May 2015 between the E.U. and Japan.

Many companies have already been tossing around their own definitions of 5G mobile technology.

Mobile Technology - European Union & ChinaMany large players in the mobile tech industry have been talking about 5G for the last while, including Samsung Electornics and, even more recently, Verizon. In fact, in September, Verizon said that they were already working on building 5G networks. That said, actual definitions of the technology have not been provided along with the claims, which has left the industry and consumers somewhat in the dark as to what that actually means.

The definitions for 3G and 4G were created by standards bodies including the 3G Patent Partnership (3GPP) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). They have taken a much more measured tack toward creating their definitions.

The ITU plans to come up with its own name for 5G mobile technology at some point in October. The prediction has also been that the name will be International Mobile Telecommunications system 2020, as that is the year in which it has predicted that the first equipment for 5G will hit the market. That said, an actual technical standard for the tech likely won’t occur until February of that year.