WeChat Pay has good news, becoming the most commonly used app in 2020, beating Alipay for the first time

The popularity of mobile payments

When it comes to mobile payment, people will sigh at its convenience and speed. Since it became popular in China, it has gradually replaced traditional cash transactions and become the preferred payment method for Chinese people. Up to now, mobile payment has already reached the level of popularization. As long as the user has a smart phone, they can use mobile payment to make purchases anytime and anywhere.

What's more, mobile payment is also known as one of the four new inventions of my country. It has not only brought positive impacts to hundreds of millions of users, but also created a huge market. Relevant data shows that the transaction volume generated by mobile payment in China exceeds one trillion yuan, which is more than the sum of all other countries in the world.

Such a huge market will naturally give birth to many outstanding third-party payment platforms, among which Alipay and WeChat Pay are the most representative examples. They can be said to be the two overlords of the domestic mobile payment industry.

Alipay is affiliated with Ant Financial and is one of the earliest mobile payment platforms in China. It is also one of Jack Ma's winning "trump cards". At the beginning, Alipay's role was just to facilitate Taobao users and provide them with a safe transaction environment; but later, Alipay gradually became the pioneer of mobile payment and had a bigger stage.

It is no exaggeration to say that without Alipay, mobile payment would not have been widely accepted so quickly. Alipay has single-handedly promoted the rise of mobile payment!

On the other hand, although WeChat Pay is backed by WeChat, a national social software, it is a latecomer and has been overshadowed by Alipay. Someone once said: Jack Ma crossed the river by feeling the stones, while Ma Huateng crossed the river by feeling Jack Ma. It is precisely because of the popularity of Alipay that WeChat launched the payment function to seize part of the market.

As of now, Alipay is still ahead in terms of market share, taking 55.4% of the market share in the third quarter of 2020, while WeChat Pay's share is 38.8%. However, another data shows that WeChat Pay has good news, becoming the most commonly used app by users in 2020, beating Alipay for the first time!

WeChat beats Alipay for the first time

This data is a 2020 user survey report on mobile payment, which lists in detail the behavioral characteristics, usage habits, and preferred platforms of mobile payment users, which can well reflect the popularity of major domestic payment platforms.

In the report, the usage rate of WeChat Pay is as high as 92.7%, while the usage rate of Alipay is 91%, slightly lower than the former. This means that WeChat Pay has successfully defeated Alipay and become the most popular App among domestic mobile payment users in 2020, completing the first surpassing in history!

In addition, the survey report also pointed out the main reason why WeChat Pay was able to catch up, that is, small-amount high-frequency transactions have gradually become a norm. When users make small purchases, the preferred payment platform is mostly WeChat Pay, while Alipay is more inclined to large-amount transactions. This is the biggest difference between the two and an important factor that affects user judgment.

For the majority of users who frequently use mobile payments, although Alipay and WeChat Pay are installed and usually opened, during daily consumption, the frequency of opening Alipay is far less than that of WeChat, so WeChat Pay is ahead of Alipay.

In fact, this situation can be summed up by the word "lazy", because WeChat is a social software that everyone cannot live without, and users usually open WeChat much more often than Alipay. As a result, it is naturally more convenient to use WeChat Pay when making payments, and many users are too lazy to open Alipay.

However, Alipay also has its own unique advantages. It has a higher security factor, so it is used for large transactions. When users need to transfer money to each other or pay wages, Alipay is the preferred platform, while WeChat Pay can only be used for entertainment and leisure activities such as sending red envelopes.

Final Thoughts

In any case, Alipay and WeChat Pay are still the two largest payment platforms in China. Their only competitors are each other, and other platforms are unlikely to shake their positions. As for which of the two is more popular, it still depends on the choice of users. I hope they can bring better experience to users in the future.