China’s Huawei Connects With UnionPay, Launches Huawei Pay

The Chinese digital wallet just got another payment option. Huawei has linked up with UnionPay to create Huawei Pay, the first payment service from the smartphone manufacturer, which produced and shipped more than 108 million units in 2015.

Huawei Pay joins a quickly growing group of payment choices in the Chinese digital wallet space. PYMNTS reported earlier this week that Xiaomi launched Mi Pay. Of course, Alibaba’s Alipay and WeChat Wallet have been very popular in the Chinese digital marketplace space for a few years. Apple Pay and Samsung Pay are also available in China.

Huawei Pay will be linked to its smartphones and other wearable devices and supports more than two dozen banks. The Huawei Mate S, which launched last year, is the first Huawei device to support the new payment capabilities and has a fingerprint sensor and security chip.

The company said it will add more smartphones with the capabilities. To support Huawei Pay, devices must come with a security chip, NFC, fingerprint sensor and also the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), which secures the confidential data.

Huawei is also expected to soon launch a new sub-brand called Nova, which includes smartphones for women.