Chinese consumers lead the world in paying with their phones

China’s smartphone owners are way ahead of everyone else on the planet when it comes to in-store payments.

China is set to have 195 million people using their phones as a wallet by the end of 2016, according to data released today by eMarketer. That represents 38 percent of all smartphones users in the country – which is double the rate in the US.

Popular messaging app WeChat, which is used by pretty much everyone in China, has a mobile wallet feature that covers both online and in-store payments. WeChat and arch-rival app Alipay are now such a common way to pay for things that most stores have signs like this (the green speech bubble one is for WeChat):

A sign by a cash register in a FamilyMart in China – nestled behind condoms and vibrators – shows that the store accepts cashless payments with WeChat and Alipay.

When people use WeChat or Alipay to make a payment in-store, they press the “pay” option in the app, which generates a QR code on the screen. The store clerk then scans it with a handheld thingumabob that’s attached to the cash register.

Photo credit: Keke286.

Afterwards, you get a receipt inside the app. Like this one inside WeChat for my orange juice:

There are three main mobile wallet options in China. Alongside WeChat and Alipay there’s a relative newcomer in the form of Apple Pay. Apple’s tie-up with China’s biggest card network, Unionpay, means that Apple Pay works at every store that has Unionpay’s PIN-input keypad. Which is pretty much every shop.

Apple Pay at a Costa Coffee in China.

There’s NFC inside it. So you hold your iPhone near the keypad to pay for something.