Yesterday, Apple has launched Apple Pay in China, entering a mobile payment market with about 360 million users and fierce competition.
昨天,Apple Pay在中国正式上线,跻身移动支付市场,中国支付市场已达3.6亿人,竞争激烈。
But it was off to a sour start as many smartphone users encountered problems signing up for Apple Pay.
但许多用户反映无法验证登陆,Apple Pay开局不利。
"It kept telling me the phone 'cannot connect to Apple Pay' or the verification for the card is not available when I was linking a bankcard," said Duan Ge, a 31-year-old employee of a film production company.
31岁某电影制作公司员工表示,手机无法连接Apple Pay,或银行卡无法通过验证。
Duan said he managed to link his debit card after about 30 minutes of trying, but later when he tried to register another credit card, he said he “couldn’t even open the app."
她称尝试差不多30分钟后,成功连接银行卡,但再想绑定时,Apple Pay已无法打开。
Apple spokesman Cong Jie said the problem was due to too many people trying to sign up and that by the second day it wouldn’t be an issue.
苹果发言人丛杰表示称,因绑定用户激增,导致出现问题,问题将在第二天解决。
It was indeed a sour start for Apple, which enters a market that is dominated by two of China’s Internet emperors, Alibaba and Tencent.
苹果开局不利,在网上支付市场,阿里巴巴和腾讯占据头名。
But Apple doesn’t come to the market without ammunition.
但苹果不打无准备之仗。
It has partnered up with UnionPay, which itself has been brooding about the dominance of Alibaba and Tencent in mobile payment, as well as 15 major lenders, including the nation’s largest, the Industrial and Commerce Bank of China.
苹果宣布与中国银联,以及包括工商银行在内的15家银行合作,银联也一直希望独霸阿里巴巴和腾讯。
And for now, sixteen businesses in China, including 7-Eleven, McDonald's and Carrefour will accept Apple Pay.
截止到目前,包括7-Eleven、麦当劳、家乐福在内的17家店将支持Apple Pay。
The payment service can also be used to buy movie tickets, book airplane tickets and food delivery via mobile phone apps.
通过Apple Pay应用,用户可以购买电影票、预定机票,还可享受送餐服务。
Some mobile payment experts also argue that Apple Pay is a safer payment option than an Internet-based system because it uses something called a near-field communication to exchange data with banks.
许多移动支付专家表示,比起互联网支付,Apple Pay与银行通过近距离无线通信交换数据,Apple Pay更为安全。
Experts say this NFC is more difficult for hackers to crack.
专家指出,NFC很难遭到黑客入侵。
However, it still faces an uphill battle. Only about 60 percent of point-of-sale terminals have this near-field communication technology, according to Dong Junfeng, a vice manager of Bank of China's Internet finance department.
然而,竞争依然严峻。据中国银行网络金融部副总经理董俊峰表示,仅60%销售点终端拥有NFC技术。
Furthermore, Dong said, "Not every business has the incentive to use Apple Pay, unless it can win support from businesses by subsidizing them, like Alipay does.”
他还表示称:“除非它们能获得像Alipay等客户端资助,否则并不是所有商家都会开通Apple Pay服务。
And although China is Apple’s second-largest market by revenue, Apple Pay is of course limited to iPhone users, and specifically to users of iPhone 6 or 6s.
虽然中国是苹果第二大市场,但Apple Pay仅限于苹果手机用户,且仅为iPhone 6或iPhone 6s用户。
The vast majority of mobile payment users still rely on WeChat and Alipay for e-payments, and as we pointed out in yesterday’s podcast, many analysts say Apple would need to offer a significantly better user experience to have customers convert to Apple Pay.
多数用户仍以来微信和支付宝支付,就像我们在昨天新闻中谈到的,多名分析人士表示,苹果需要提供更为优越的客户体验,吸引顾客转向Apple Pay。