McDonald's, Starbucks leaning more on mobile payments

Starbucks and McDonald’s say they now get a third or more of their China business from mobile payments, reflecting the nation’s growing global leadership in the high-tech electronic transaction space, Caixin reports. About 45% of purchases at McDonald’s more than 2,400 China stores are made through mobile payments, the company revealed at an event over the weekend. Meantime, Starbucks said 29% of transactions at its China stores were made through mobile payment in the first quarter, according to its China CEO, Belinda Wong, who revealed the figure during the company’s latest analyst briefing. Starbucks’ mobile payments have ramped up in the last half-year after it signed a tie-up with Tencent, operator of the popular WeChat instant messaging app and its associated payment tool. The sector’s other major player is Alipay, a unit of Ant Financial Services Group, with WeChat and Alipay collectively controlling 90% of the digital-wallet market. More than 77% of Chinese have used mobile payment tools at some point.