微信支付與支付寶硬碰硬大綱

China’s $5.5tn mobile payments sector — more than 50 times bigger than that of the US — is being shaken up by one-time underdog Tencent, which is snatching market share from rival Alibaba.
曾經處於劣勢的騰訊(Tencent)正在撼動中國5.5萬億美元的移動支付市場，從競爭對手阿里巴巴(Alibaba)那裏搶奪市場份額。中國移動支付市場的規模是美國的50倍。

Alipay, which Alibaba launched in 2004 as a PayPal-type service to facilitate payments on its Taobao ecommerce platform, has long dominated China’s mobile payments. But its share of the market had fallen to nearly half by the end of last year while Tencent’s rose to more than a third.
支付寶(Alipay)是阿里巴巴於2004年推出的一種類似PayPal的服務，目的是方便在其電商平臺淘寶(Taobao)上的支付活動。長期以來，支付寶一直主宰着中國的移動支付市場。但到去年底，支付寶的市場份額快要降至一半，而騰訊的市場份額升至逾三分之一。

Alibaba had a 54 per cent market share in the fourth quarter of 2016 compared with 71 per cent in the third quarter of 2015, according to the latest data from consultancy Analysys. Tencent’s share rose to 37 per cent against 16 per cent in the comparable periods. ApplePay, which launched in China early last year, did not feature in the top 10.
根據諮詢公司易觀(Analysys)的數據，2016年第四季度，阿里巴巴佔據54%的市場份額，而2015年第三季度其份額曾高達71%。同期，騰訊的市場份額從16%升至37%。去年初在中國推出的Apple Pay沒有擠入前十。

China leads the world in mobile payments, buoyed by a boom in online shopping and the relative dearth of alternatives such as credit cards. iResearch said China’s mobile payments hit $5.5tn last year, 50 times the size of the US’s $112bn market, based on Forrester Research figures.
受網絡購物熱潮和信用卡等其他支付方式相對缺乏的推動，中國的移動支付領先全球。艾瑞諮詢(iResearch)表示，根據Forrester Research的數據，去年，中國的移動支付規模達到5.5萬億美元，是美國（1120億美元）的50倍。

Tencent, best known for its gaming and social media platform WeChat with 890m users, entered the arena a decade after Alibaba and for a year the two staged an expensive battle to attract customers.
騰訊以其遊戲和擁有8.90億用戶的社交媒體平臺微信(WeChat)最爲知名。騰訊的微信支付(Weixin Pay)比阿里巴巴的支付寶晚十年推出，兩家公司打了爲期一年的昂貴的用戶爭奪戰。

Tencent’s Weixin Pay burst on to the scene with digital hongbao, the red envelopes of money handed over as gifts during lunar new year. The ability to send hongbao online via WeChat accounts revolutionised a centuries-old tradition: this year 64bn hongbao were exchanged over the six-day holiday period.
騰訊的微信支付憑藉電子紅包強勢登場。通過微信賬號發送在線紅包的模式，顛覆了幾百年的傳統：今年春節假期從除夕到初五這六天，微信紅包收發總量爲460億個。

“If we don’t consider red envelopes and [Alibaba] don’t count Taobao transactions, we don’t know which one is bigger,” Zhang Ying, Tencent vice-president, told a conference in Hong Kong last month.
騰訊副總裁張穎上月在香港一個會議上表示：“如果我們不考慮紅包，（阿里巴巴）也不把淘寶交易算在內的話，我們不知道哪一個做得更大。”

The battle for share in payments is less to do with profits — charges barely cover costs, according to one industry player — but in the value of the data gathered from spending habits and financial information.
爭奪支付領域的市場份額在更大程度上不是爲了利潤（據一位業內人士表示，在該領域，收費將將夠抵消成本），而是爲了從用戶的支付習慣和金融信息中搜集有價值的數據。

Industry consultants attribute Tencent’s rise to the pervasive use of WeChat and merchants’ desire to avoid relying on one provider.
行業諮詢人士將騰訊的崛起歸因於微信的普及和商戶避免依賴一家供應商的願望。

“The dominance of the Taobao and T-Mall ecommerce platforms initially helped make Alipay the default digital wallet in China,” said Jeff Galvin, partner at McKinsey in Hong Kong.
麥肯錫(McKinsey)駐香港合夥人傑夫?高爾文(Jeff Galvin)表示：“起初，電商平臺淘寶和天貓(Tmall)的主導地位幫助讓支付寶成爲中國默認的電子錢包。

“But now, as Chinese spend more and more time in the WeChat ecosystem — and they keep funds in its wallet for peer-to-peer payments, in-app purchases, and other things — [Weixin Pay] has really emerged as a peer competitor to Alipay.”
“但如今，隨着中國人在微信平臺花費的時間越來越多，他們把錢存入微信錢包用於個人對個人支付、在應用內購物以及其他活動，（微信支付）確實成爲了支付寶的對等競爭對手。”

Tencent has signed up physical stores this year, including Starbucks. Almost all of the US group’s 2,600 China cafés accept Weixin Pay — the one on Alibaba’s campus in Hangzhou being a notable exception.
今年騰訊與包括星巴克(Starbucks)在內的實體門店簽約。星巴克在中國的幾乎所有2600家門店都接受微信支付，阿里巴巴杭州園區的門店是個顯眼的例外。

TenPay is the platform serving Weixin Pay; WeChat Pay, the overseas version; and QQ Wallet, its digital wallet.
財付通(TenPay)爲微信支付、WeChat Pay（微信支付海外版）以及QQ錢包提供底層技術支持。

“TenPay has a clear path,” said Mr Zhang. “In 2014 we focused on hongbao. Last year we tried to develop the offline merchants. This year my objective is to cover more than 10m small merchants or stores in China.”
“財付通的路線很清楚，”張穎表示，“2014年，我們關注紅包。去年，我們努力開發線下商戶。今年，我們的目標是覆蓋中國逾1000萬家小商戶或店鋪。”

Alibaba has fought back, building its own physical network — including overseas, where 110,000 shops accept Alipay. It says it has signed up more than 2m physical shops in China with 10m merchants on Taobao using Alipay.
阿里巴巴已展開回擊，該公司擴大了自己的實體門店網絡，包括在海外，有11萬家店鋪接受支付寶。阿里巴巴表示，已與中國逾200萬家實體店鋪簽約。有1000萬家淘寶商戶使用支付寶。

Ant Financial, the Alibaba affiliate that runs Alipay, also points to its broader financial services offerings, such as money market fund Yu’e Bao, which now has Rmb1.14tn ($165.6bn) under management, up from Rmb808bn in the fourth quarter of 2016.
管理支付寶的阿里巴巴關聯公司螞蟻金融(Ant Financial)還提到自己旗下的其他金融服務，例如貨幣市場基金餘額寶，該基金現管理着1.14萬億元人民幣（合1656億美元）資金，2016年第四季度的這個數字爲8080億元人民幣。