A shopping cart full of products is seen as a customer shops at a Wal-Mart store in Beijing. (Photo : Reuters)
Walmart has announced it is partnering with Alibaba to allow customers to purchase goods via mobile payments in 25 of its stores in China, a move which analysts see as a bid by the U.S. retail giant to draw in the country’s growing number of mobile shoppers.
Shoppers can pay using Alipay Wallet, the mobile app of Alibaba's payment unit Alipay, in Walmart stores in Shenzhen, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday.
The stores have scanners to read barcodes in the app and can process payments within seconds. The retailer will also offer rebates of up to 15 yuan ($2.42) for purchases made next month for shoppers who use Alipay.
Walmart said that it expects more of its branches to begin accepting mobile payment in the near future.
China's mobile payment market is growing rapidly, with transaction volume on third-party platforms surpassing 7 trillion yuan ($1.1 trillion) in 2014, according to data from consultancy firm Analysys International.
Alibaba, which has grown to one of the world's largest e-commerce companies, has been expanding to various businesses in recent years, ranging from wealth management to mobile messaging.
Its mobile app, Alipay Wallet, currently has more than 270 million active users, according to Alipay statistics. Over 40,000 retail stores, including French supermarket chain Carrefour, accept payments through the app.
Walmart, which owns more than 410 outlets across China, reported a 5.7-percent drop in customers in the country year on year in 2014. However, the retailer has plans to expand its Chinese operations and intends to open another 115 stores in China by 2017, according to MarketWatch.
