Apple today launched a large-scale Apple Pay promotion in China, offering various discounts and rewards to customers who would use Apple Pay between July 18 and July 24 to make purchases in participating merchants across mainland China.
Billed as the largest Apple Pay promotion to date in the 1.33 billion people country, it offers discounts of up to 50 percent and as much as 50 times the usual number of reward points for credit cards, with 17 Chinese banks offering 50 times the reward points accrued when transactions are made using credit cards registered with Apple Pay.
Apple’s website lists 28 retail locations that are participating in the promotion, including international brands such as 7-Eleven, Watsons, Burger King, Starbucks and more.
JD.com along with an additional fifteen online merchants are part of the promo, too.
Apple Pay launched in China in February of last year.
“I am happy to see that Apple finally has decided to do something to gain market share in China,” IDC China’s managing director Kitty Fok told South China Morning Post.
According to research firm Analysys, Chinese mobile payment market is dominated by Alibaba and Tencent, whose Alipay and WeChat Pay held respective 53.7 percent and 39.5 percent of the market as of the first quarter of 2017.
Alipay and WeChat Pay also offer various cash rebates or discounts now and then.