沃爾瑪在中國西部棄用支付寶轉用微信支付

Walmart, the US retailer, has ditched Alipay in favour of Tencent’s mobile payments app in western China, dealing a fresh blow to Alibaba in the battle between the country’s biggest tech groups to dominate the $15.5tn payments market.

美國零售商沃爾瑪(Walmart)已在中國西部棄用支付寶(Alipay)，轉而支持騰訊(Tencent)的移動支付應用程序，這使阿里巴巴(Alibaba)在中國大型科技集團主宰15.5萬億美元支付市場的角力中遭到新的打擊。

Payments have become a key battleground for the Chinese groups — both of which rank in the world’s 10 most valuable companies — as they compete in markets spanning retail, entertainment and logistics.

隨著這兩家中國企業(yè)在零售、娛樂和物流等領域展開角逐，支付已成為它們之間的一個關鍵戰(zhàn)場。如今阿里巴巴和騰訊都在全球市值最高的10家企業(yè)之列。

Walmart, which along with Carrefour is among the biggest foreign retailers in China, has been accepting Alipay in its 400-plus stores in the country. However, this month it said it had entered into partnership with WeChat Pay in the western region.

沃爾瑪和家樂福(Carrefour)都是中國市場上的大型外國零售商。此前沃爾瑪在中國的400多家門店一直接受支付寶。不過，沃爾瑪本月表示，它已與微信支付(WeChat Pay)在中國西部地區(qū)達成了合作關系。

Payments yield only wafer-thin profits but have enabled the tech companies to expand their financial services arms to include more profitable areas spanning loans, insurance and asset management. Yu’e Bao, the money market fund of Ant Financial, the payments affiliate of Alibaba, for example, is the world’s largest with about Rmb1.5tn under management.

支付只產(chǎn)生微薄的利潤，但它讓科技公司旗下金融服務部門得以擴展業(yè)務，進入貸款、保險和資產(chǎn)管理等利潤更高的領域。例如，阿里巴巴的支付關聯(lián)企業(yè)螞蟻金服(Ant Financial)的余額寶(Yu 'e Bao)已成為全球最大的貨幣市場基金，旗下管理著約1.5萬億元人民幣資產(chǎn)。

Part of the market’s growth is due to China’s poor system of legacy banking — the country has mostly leapfrogged credit cards, for example — but has also been fuelled by innovations such as moving hongbao, the red packets of money given at lunar new year, online.

移動支付市場增長的部分原因在于中國的傳統(tǒng)銀行體系較為落后——例如，中國基本上跳過了信用卡階段——但也受到了各種創(chuàng)新的推動，比如把春節(jié)紅包搬到網(wǎng)上。

Shops, taxis and hospitals across China accept both the payment methods of Tencent and Alibaba, with some shops and services refusing to accept cash.

中國各地的商店、出租車和醫(yī)院同時接受騰訊和阿里巴巴的支付方式，一些商店和服務甚至已拒絕接受現(xiàn)金。

Alibaba remains the industry leader but Tencent has made huge inroads. Tencent, for example, scored an early win with Starbucks’ coffee shops across China but late last year the chain said it would accept Alipay too.

目前，阿里巴巴仍是行業(yè)領頭羊，但騰訊取得了巨大進展。例如，騰訊很早就在中國各地的星巴克(Starbucks)咖啡店取得了一場勝利，但去年末，這家連鎖店表示也將接受支付寶。

Walmart declined to explain why the company was ditching Alipay, saying: “This business decision is intended to help us offer the best all-round shopping experience for our customers. WeChat Pay is widely accepted and trusted in China.”

沃爾瑪拒絕解釋該公司為何棄用支付寶，只是說：“這項商業(yè)決定旨在幫助我們?yōu)榭蛻籼峁┳罴训娜轿毁徫矬w驗。在中國，微信支付得到了廣泛的接受和信任。”