UC Mobile jumps into mobile payment market
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UC Mobile, the world's largest mobile Internet browser provider, announced on Wednesday a move into China's mobile payment market, in partnership with Alipay, the country's largest independent online payment platform.
UC mobile released a new version of its mobile Internet browser on Wednesday that supports Alipay's payment plug-in and allows payment via handsets, the first attempt by a mobile browser to enable in-app payment, Yu Yongfu, chairman and chief executive of UC Mobile, said on Wednesday.
Users can get direct access to Alipay's payment pages when they need to make transactions via handsets. In addition, users can choose to pay amounts under 200 yuan ($30.64) without a password.
The newest version is available for the Android and Symbian operating systems for the time being, and will be extended to other operating systems, including iPhone, Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry, in the second half of the year, according to Liang Jie, chief technology officer at UC Mobile.
China's mobile Internet market has been growing fast in recent years, and demand for payment via handsets is expected to see a boom in the coming years, Yu said on Wednesday.
The two sides' cooperation will have a big impact on the mobile payment industry, given their dominant position in their respective fields, said Zhang Meng, an industry analyst with Beijing-based research firm Analysys International.
In the fourth quarter of last year, UC Mobile continued to rank No. 1 in the country's market for mobile Internet browsers, holding a 52.29 percent market share, according to Analysys International.
Alipay, a division of Alibaba Group, China's largest e-commerce company, dominated the country's online payment market with a 51.2 percent market share in terms of transaction volume last year, according to the research agency.
Alipay's daily transactions have currently reached nearly 2 billion yuan ($306.44 million) in China.
