Apple launched a full-blown promotional campaign in China this week, offering up to 50% discounts when customers choose to pay with the company’s Apple Pay service, in a bid to take a bite out of the world’s largest mobile-payment market. Apple’s digital-payment unit is hoping to sink its teeth deeper into the juicy 35 trillion yuan ($5.2 trillion) online-transaction market in China – one ruled by tech giants Tencent and Alibaba – over a year after an unremarkable debut. Apple Pay users will receive discounts this week when they swipe their iPhones over a contactless terminal at 40 franchises, including brick-and-mortar retail shops such as 7-Eleven, Starbucks, Carrefour and Gap, as well as at online outlets. Apple was a latecomer to the online payment scene in China, according to Caixin. It didn’t launch its service in the country until February 2016 – Chinese people spent 6 trillion rmb using digital wallets that quarter.