With the release of iOS 14.5 and the App Tracking Transparency feature, multiple companies that have ad-based businesses have been getting concerned as Apple’s privacy policies now let users opt-out of being tracked by third-party apps. Last week, Alibaba Group invited some marketing executives to discuss what to do about the changes introduced with iOS 14.5.
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Following Monday’s report that Apple is planning to launch Apple Pay in China in February of next year, Bloomberg reports that it has reached a preliminary agreement with UnionPay to use its card-processing terminals. The agreement was an essential step along the way as UnionPay has a monopoly on card-processing in China.
The agreement is provisional, as it still requires the individual banks to agree. They have reportedly been reluctant to agree to the 0.15% cut Apple takes of each transaction. Given the transaction volumes involved, that soon adds up to a significant chunk of the tiny percentage banks charge retailers.
That isn’t the only hurdle Apple needs to overcome …
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Apple is one step closer in its plans to take Apple Pay into the company’s second-largest market, China. The WSJ reports that Apple has created a company in the Shanghai free-trade zone specifically to operate its Apple Pay business in the country, and seeded it with $13.4M of capital.
The Apple Inc. entity, named Apple Technology Service (Shanghai) Ltd., was registered in the city’s free-trade zone on June 10, according to the Shanghai government’s company-registration database. Its business operations include technical consulting, services and system integration in the field of payments, the database showed.
With China already a bigger market for Apple than Europe, and looking set to overtake the USA in size, the potential for Apple Pay in the country is huge. Mobile payment is already widely accepted in China, with more than 300 million people using Alipay, the mobile wallet service created by ecommerce giant Alibaba …
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While Apple plans to debut its own mass transit directions service for Maps in iOS 9 as soon as June, the rollout will not be as ambitious as some users may have hoped. In its first iteration, Apple’s Transit service will only support approximately a half-dozen cities across the United States, Canada, and Europe, in addition to China, according to sources…
We learned last fall that Apple plans to bring Apple Pay to China by partnering with UnionPay. Code found within iOS pointed to Apple preparing its mobile payment service for China while MarketWatch reported Apple was working on a deal with the institution. Several months later, however, MarketWatch now reports that Apple is “struggling with its relationship with UnionPay,” adding that Apple has not yet established an agreement it hoped to reach by March.
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Apple CEO Tim Cook, speaking at the Wall Street Journal: Digital conference in October, claimed that he would be entering discussions with Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba, about a potential partnership with the Chinese e-commerce company. It was speculated at the time that any partnership would likely be centered upon the integration of Apple Pay and Alipay for mobile payments on Alibaba, Taobao and Tmall.
Amid the speculation, China Daily was first to report that Alibaba has updated its Alipay app for iPhone and iPad today with Touch ID support. Alipay users with an iPhone 5s, iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus will now be able to use their fingerprint instead of a password when making mobile payments on the latest version of the app, which is a step closer to the way that Apple Pay works in the United States.
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The potential partnership between Apple and Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba could facilitate a far more rapid rollout of Apple Pay in the country than if Apple goes it alone, suggests a piece in the WSJ. Tim Cook first revealed that he was in talks with the company at the WSJ Digital conference last month.
One possible scenario is for Alibaba’s financial affiliate, which owns the Alipay electronic-payment business in China, to provide back-end services for Apple’s Apple Pay payment system, allowing iPhone users to pay with Apple Pay using the money from their Alipay accounts, Mr. Tsai said.
Such an arrangement would be significant for two reasons …
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Apple chief executive Tim Cook just moments ago in a live interview at The Wall Street Journal: Digital conference claimed that he will be entering talks with Jack Ma, executive chairman of Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba, about a potential partnership with the online enterprise “later this week.” Any potential partnership between Apple and Alibaba would likely involve the integration of Apple Pay and Alipay across Taobao, Tmall and Alibaba.
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It might be two months before the rumored launch date of the iPhone 6, with a working phone yet to be sighted and no clue as to the retail price, but that isn’t stopping sellers taking pre-orders, reports the WSJ.
More than thirty sellers on Alibaba’s Taobao marketplace said they can help purchase the upcoming new iPhone 6s from the U.S. and Hong Kong. But there’s one catch: consumers have to pay a deposit ranging from 500 yuan ($80) to 7,999 yuan ($1288).
One seller even went as far as putting together a laughable mockup of an Apple webpage for the iPhone 6 (the full page can be seen below).
Another seller claimed the price of the unsubsidized 4.7-inch model would start at 5,288 yuan ($851) , with the 5.5-inch version starting at 5,988 yuan ($964), but there is absolutely no reason to think they have any information on Apple’s pricing plans.
Back in the real world, it’s been reported that Apple is looking to produce 70-80M iPhone 6 handsets by the end of the year, with production expected to begin imminently after Foxconn confirmed hiring 100,000 new workers for the project.
Here, for your amusement, is that full hilarious attempt at mocking up the iPhone 6 page on the Apple website (complete with the line that it was ‘made for iOS 7’) …
