Alipay and WeChat Pay, by the numbers

Leveraging their e-commerce and social network platforms, Alibaba and Tencent – through their Alipay and WeChat Pay apps – are dominating China’s payments industry.

Just how much are they crushing it, though? Here are a few numbers from the UN’s Better Than Cash Alliance report (PDF) to help put things in perspective.

60%: The percentage of non-cash retail transactions in China in 2015.

17%: Of all retail transactions in 2015 were made through digital payments.

$11.6 billion: The ballpark value of WeChat payments in 2012.

85: The multiple by which they increased over the past four years (it surged to $1.2 trillion last year).

$70 billion: The approximate value of Alipay payments in 2012.

$1.7 trillion: The estimated value of Alipay payments in 2016.

$300 billion: The rough value of payments made through Alipay and WeChat’s competitors.

$2.9 trillion: The value of Alipay and WeChat’s payments in 2016, combined.

Photo: Andy Maguire