Alibaba’s domestic platforms Taobao and Tmall will now accept payments from Tencent’s WeChat Pay, the e-commerce giant announced in a statement on Wednesday. Alibaba, affiliated with Jack Ma-founded Ant Group’s Alipay, faces competition from WeChat Pay in the online payment market in China.
Tencent, which owns WeChat Pay, is also a major investor in Alibaba’s rivals JD.com and Pinduoduo. According to Alibaba’s statement, Taobao and Tmall Group (TTG) have informed merchants about the plan to add WeChat Pay as a payment option. However, the statement did not specify the timeline for the complete rollout of the service, and Alibaba did not respond to queries about the timing.
In its quarterly earnings results released last month, Alibaba reported that its domestic e-commerce market share had stabilized. While revenue at the company’s domestic e-commerce arm fell by 1%, there was a significant increase in the number of purchasers and their purchase frequency. The traditional “walled garden” system of using Tencent’s payment system on Tencent-affiliated platforms and Alipay on Alibaba-affiliated platforms has gradually broken down.
Since 2021, WeChat users have been able to share links to products on Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms, but they could not complete transactions with WeChat Pay.