Tencent partners with Line on mobile payments in Japan – Nikkei Asian Review
What happened: Chinese social app king Tencent will partner with Japanese chat app Line for mobile payment. The collaboration is widely seen as a move to improve tourism experience in Japan. Prior to the tie-up, Line Pay was already available at roughly 1 million locations. Line will lease terminals compatible with Tencent’s WeChat Pay starting from mid-December to small and midsize restaurants and stores that have yet to adopt Line’s own Line Pay offering. The service with Tencent will start next year.
Why it’s important: China’s online payment services are going abroad, with Chinese giants partnering with local market leaders. The Tencent-Line collaboration is seen as a response to Yahoo and SoftBank’s alliance with Alibaba which allows Alipay and their own PayPay. The Chinese players in both of these alliances each boast 700 million to 800 million users, a significant user base size for any overseas tourist market.