UPDATED 07:15 EDT / NOVEMBER 28 2014

Android Pay is coming to China, UnionPay courts smartphone makers

android eating appleAndroid could soon be a strong player in the mobile payments market and provide Apple Inc. with some competition. The largest issuer of debit and credit cards in China, China UnionPay has been promoting Android Pay, according to Shanghai’s China Business News reports. The service will be available for Android-based smartphone makers and is rumored to launch in the third quarter of 2015.

The service will be similar to Apple Pay, using fingerprint recognition plus Near Field Communication (NFC) to secure and enable mobile payments.

The plan for Android Pay is that UnionPay will subsidize smartphone makers for the additional cost of the NFC chip used in the phone, thereby paving the way for Android Pay to be adopted by more manufacturers. Smartphone makers, including Lenovo and Coolpad, have been approached by UnionPay according to the report by Want China Times.

Based on the value of processed transactions, UnionPay comes in second, after Visa, as the biggest payment network in the world. They also have an extensive list of partners, which could see Android Pay launching with more partners than Apple Pay did.

Apple announced on November 17, their acceptance of UnionPay cards for payment at Apple’s App Store in China. This announcement came as the first indication that Apple and UnionPay could team up to introduce Apple Pay to China in early 2015.

Both Android Pay and Apple Pay are likely to see stiff competition from Alipay in China. Alipay has a dominant position and currently holds 80% market share in China’s mobile payments market.

photo credit: asgw via photopin cc

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU