Ondrej Holzman Apple CEO Tim Cook spent a four-day visit to the People's Republic of China last week, where he met with the country's top officials discussed online security, promised a new Apple Story and visited the Foxconn factory where the new iPhones are assembled. At the same time, he said that the number one priority for Apple now is to get Apple Pay to China.
“We want to bring Apple Pay to China. Everything we do, we're going to make it work here, too. Apple Pay is a clear priority,” he said during his visit to China for the state news agency Cook.
In the United States, the new payment service Apple Pay was launched a week ago and as Tim Cook at the WSJD conference he revealed, Apple immediately became the biggest player in this field. In the first three days, one million payment cards were activated in Apple Pay.
The Californian company also sees huge potential for Apple Pay in China, but just like in Europe, it still has to overcome many obstacles before entering the Asian continent. The new iPhones 6 and 6 Plus, which only went on sale in China less than two weeks ago, have NFC for contactless payments disabled. According to a Chinese website Caixin Online Apple Pay could not arrive in the country until the second quarter of next year at the earliest.
In China, four major players are fighting over how best to solve and secure electronic payments. Who is it about?
- UnionPay, a giant state-owned payment card issuer and longtime supporter of NFC technology.
- Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, has taken the cheaper, less secure route of QR codes.
- China Mobile and other large mobile operators that sell SIM cards with built-in secure elements (secure chips that even the new iPhone 6 have in them).
- Samsung, HTC, Huawei, Lenovo and other smartphone manufacturers who try to maintain control over secure elements in their own devices.
Apple now wants to enter all this with its own secure element, encrypted exchange of tokens when making a payment and a proprietary solution with a fingerprint. In addition, Apple has not always had a bed of roses in China, especially from the state media, so the question is how quickly and successfully the negotiations will proceed. In September though Caixin Online he reported, that state-owned payment card issuer UnionPay has agreed to accept Apple Pay, but it still hasn't.
In particular, there is a big debate in China about the key security element - the secure element - that is, about who should have control over it. Everyone is interested. "Anyone who controls the secure element controls the data stored on it and the capital stored in the relevant accounts," explains the reason for the interest of all stakeholders in its security report, Shenyin & Wanguo.
At least with the largest Chinese internet retailer Alibaba Group, which has so far preferred QR codes instead of NFC, Apple has already started dealing. This was revealed by Tim Cook at the WSJD conference, who will meet Jack Ma, the head of Alibaba Group, this week.
"If we can find some areas of common interest, that will be great," Cook told WSJD, fronted by Jack Ma. The head of Apple is said to have great respect for him and likes to work with smart people like him. Even Jack Ma is not opposed to the cooperation of the two companies: "I hope we can achieve something together."
But when Apple Pay will actually arrive in China is not at all clear yet, and the same is true of Europe.
