Alipay users set spending record

Users of China mobile wallet app Alipay hit spending records last year both online and in stores.

Of the app’s 450 million users, most are in Shanghai, paying out an average US$20,400 last year, says the Alibaba spin-off company. This was 1.5 times more than they spent the previous year.

While the average middle-class wage in Shanghai is $35,000, this does not account for undisclosed income such as from rented property.

These figures have been released just weeks after the app hit a record 1 billion transactions in a single day.
Other highlights from Alipay’s year:

• 71 per cent of Alipay transactions were on mobile devices, up from 2015’s 65 per cent
  Cash-strapped millennials, in China classified as those born in the 1990s, spent an average of $1080 through the app

• Gen Y, those born in the 1990s, averaged $1590

• The top 10 destinations outside China where Alipay was used for in-store shopping were South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and Germany

• Its single biggest overseas spender splurged $38,900.

Meanwhile, the company has been signing up airports, major malls and top restaurants so China’s record 133 million overseas tourists can still use the app.

About 2.3 billion Alipay transactions were chalked up using the built-in Ant Credit Pay, allowing for payment in installments, up 344 per cent from 2015.

Alipay’s small loans service, Jiebei, issued loans worth $43.4 billion to 12 million users.