Tencent Responsible For 20 Percent Of Online Transactions During Q3

According to a new reports from iResearch, Tenpay, the payments arms of  Chinese web giant Tencent, had a 20 percent share of the online payments market as of Q3 2014. Their main rival Alipay, owned by Alibaba, still has a commanding lead of payments online in china with a 49.2 percent share of the market.  For the purposes of this survey, iResearch was only looking at third-party payments platforms. Banks and China Union Pay were both excluded from the report analysis.

With the help of its large user base, Tencent has more than 800 million active users on its leading social platform. Tenpay is one example of how Chinese companies are leading in mobile payment services. Tencent is additionally broadening its ecosystem with investments in various categories such as Chinese taxi-hailing app Didi Dache.

On Tenpay’s platform, users can pay for hailing taxis and make in-app purchases on Weixin for orders ranging from local pharmaceutical chains to organic tea shops. Though Tencent still trails Alibaba, which is equally aggressive in its investments and expansion plans (plus also just had the largest IPO in U.S. Stock Exchange history), the company believes it can eclipse Jack Ma’s giant with its more out-of-the box mobile ready platform.