Information about the integration of AliPay into Apple Play was first made by the Apple-centric site, 9to5Mac, in a closing one-liner. That simply says “Another change includes AliPay support for Apple Pay with iOS 14”. While there isn’t any follow-up to the statement, it’s actually understandable why integrating AliPay with Apple Pay is such a huge deal. Firstly, the mobile and online payment platform is part of the Alibaba group. And it is one of the world’s largest platform of its kind and in the world, having surpassed PayPal back in 2013.
The next reason why this is quite a huge deal – for Apple Pay, at least – is because providing support for AliPay opens up the gate for Apple to more than one billion iOS users in China. This access alone will undoubtedly be a major revenue boost for Apple, even if it does have to split the profits with AliPay. Once again, there’s still no specific launch date for iOS, but based on previous years, there is speculation that Apple could release the update sometime in September this year. Of course, that is assuming the current Coronavirus outbreak doesn’t mess up Apple’s roadmap for this year any more than it already has with other major tech brands. (Source: 9to5Mac, iMore)
