沃爾瑪在中國西部棄用支付寶 轉用微信支付

Walmart, the US retailer, has ditched Alipay in favour of Tencent's mobile payments app in western China, dealing a fresh blow to Alibaba in the battle between the country's biggest tech groups to dominate the $15.5tn payments market.

美國零售商沃爾瑪已在中國西部棄用支付寶，轉而支持騰訊的移動支付應用程序，這使得阿里巴巴在中國兩大科技集團主宰15.5萬億美元支付市場的角力中遭到新的打擊。

Payments have become a key battleground for the Chinese groups — both of which rank in the world's 10 most valuable companies — as they compete in markets spanning retail, entertainment and logistics.

隨着這兩家中國企業在零售、娛樂和物流等領域展開角逐，支付已成爲它們之間的一個關鍵戰場。如今阿里巴巴和騰訊都在全球市值最高的10家企業之列。

Walmart, which along with Carrefour is among the biggest foreign retailers in China, has been accepting Alipay in its 400-plus stores in the country. However, this month it said it had entered into partnership with WeChat Pay in the western region.

沃爾瑪和家樂福都是中國市場上的大型外國零售商。此前沃爾瑪在中國的400多家門店一直接受支付寶。不過，沃爾瑪本月表示，它已與微信支付在中國西部地區達成了合作關係。

Payments yield only wafer-thin profits but have enabled the tech companies to expand their financial services arms to include more profitable areas spanning loans, insurance and asset management.

支付只產生微薄的利潤，但它讓科技公司旗下金融服務部門得以擴展業務，進入貸款、保險和資產管理等利潤更高的領域。

Yu'e Bao, the money market fund of Ant Financial, the payments affiliate of Alibaba, for example, is the world's largest with about Rmb1.5tn under management.

例如，阿里巴巴的支付關聯企業螞蟻金服的餘額寶，就已成爲全球最大的貨幣市場基金，旗下管理着約1.5萬億元人民幣資產。

Part of the market's growth is due to China's poor system of legacy banking — the country has mostly leapfrogged credit cards, for example — but has also been fuelled by innovations such as moving hongbao, the red packets of money given at lunar new year, online.

移動支付市場增長的部分原因在於中國的傳統銀行體系較爲落後--例如，中國基本上跳過了信用卡階段--但也受到了各種創新的推動，比如把春節紅包搬到網上。

Shops, taxis and hospitals across China accept both the payment methods of Tencent and Alibaba, with some shops and services refusing to accept cash.

中國各地的商店、出租車和醫院同時接受騰訊和阿里巴巴的支付方式，一些商店和服務甚至已拒絕接受現金。

Alibaba remains the industry leader but Tencent has made huge inroads. Tencent, for example, scored an early win with Starbucks' coffee shops across China but late last year the chain said it would accept Alipay too.

目前，阿里巴巴仍是行業領頭羊，但騰訊取得了巨大進展。例如，騰訊很早就在中國各地的星巴克咖啡店取得了一場勝利，但去年末，這家連鎖店表示也將接受支付寶。

Walmart declined to explain why the company was ditching Alipay, saying: "This business decision is intended to help us offer the best all-round shopping experience for our customers. WeChat Pay is widely accepted and trusted in China."

沃爾瑪拒絕解釋該公司爲何棄用支付寶，只是表示：“這項商業決定旨在幫助我們爲客戶提供最佳的全方位購物體驗。在中國，微信支付得到了廣泛的接受和信任。”