Sina Weibo enter into the mobile payment market. Do they have a chance of success?

Sina Weibo published their own payment system "Weibo Wallet" last December, but recently they also published its service for mobile users.

Now they provide only the Android client and mobile browser version, but they said that they will also provide its iPhone and Windows client soon.

I downloaded the Android client and tried it.

  

It can be charged the money from bank, mobile phone and so forth, and the user can pay the electric, water and gas bills from it as same as the PC version.


According to the recent report by CNNIC, mobile payment user is rapidly increasing in China. Furthermore, MIIT estimated that the scale of mobile payment market in China will be about 24 billion USD in 2013, and its market will continue 40% growth in the next few year.

Sina Weibo would like to monetize soon, and also in the view of its market growth, it's make sense that they will enter into the mobile payment market. But there are many strong rival like Alipay in this market. Furthermore, Unionpay and each banks are also watching vigilantly for a chance.

Sina Weibo have over 500 million users now, so "Weibo Wallet" user may be smoothly increasing. But the view of real business, I think that they will continue facing the tough challenge for a while. Let's keep attention to their actions.


Source => Weibo Wallet, ChinaIRN