According to information disclosed by LatePost, Alipay has made huge investments in "Alipay Tap" in 2024, and has equipped a team of 1,000 people. In less than half a year, more than one million terminal devices have been deployed to merchants.
Alipay is also continuously launching various subsidy activities to implement "Alipay Tap". On the one hand, merchants can get subsidies for using "Alipay Tap"; on the other hand, as long as consumers use "Alipay Tap" to pay, they can experience a 2 yuan discount, 300,000 free orders from merchants, receive coupons in 17 cities, unlock 1 yuan hot products, and even "Alipay Tap" payment card collection activities, with a chance to draw tickets for the 2025 Jiangsu Satellite TV New Year's Eve Gala and a three-day and two-night hotel in Macau.
In the recent research and writing process of "2024 Wide Area Internet of Things-China Cellular & Satellite Internet of Things Industry Research White Paper", we found that the new 4G Cat.1 terminal direction can pay close attention to the Alipay "Alipay Tap" market.
Alipay's "Alipay Tap" is a strategic project proposed by Ant Group in 2023 and promoted in 2024. It is expected to become the next generation payment method after "Scan" and reverse the current payment pattern. Under the current situation, the ratio of WeChat payment and Alipay payment is basically 8:2, and WeChat payment occupies an absolute leading position.
Another noteworthy cooperation news is that Alipay has launched a strategic cooperation with Huawei terminals. The latest Huawei Mate 70 and Mate X6 can realize "touch payment when the screen is on", that is, you can touch it after the phone turns on the screen, then unlock the phone with your face, and click to confirm the payment. For other models that have not yet reached cooperation, under the security mechanism, the "Alipay Tap" can be triggered only when the phone is unlocked. But it is precisely because of the differences that many mobile phone brands hope to cooperate with "Alipay Tap".
What is the technical principle of "Alipay Tap"? What is the relationship with the communications industry we are concerned about? How much terminal equipment will be generated in the future? These will be the main focus of this article.
Technical content covers: NFC+4G networking
In July 2024, Alipay launched "Alipay Tap", and the operation steps can be summarized as: unlock the phone - touch and pay - confirm payment. Compared with "scan and pay", which requires unlocking the phone - opening the payment application - opening the payment code, the steps are indeed simpler.
From the perspective of technical support:
1. "Alipay Tap" requires the use of NFC to complete the handshake between devices.
2. In the "Alipay Tap" mode, in theory, both the merchant's device and the mobile phone need to be connected to the Internet to complete the transmission of the information being operated.
And in order to fully meet the diverse needs of users, the "Alipay Tap" terminal still provides a camera to support code scanning payment, and merchants also have a wide range of needs for voice broadcasting, so from the device parameters seen from the official Alipay channel, both the touch-N5D and touch-N5H models are marked with the use of Cat.4 communication solutions.
As a new generation of payment method promoted by Alipay, it is undeniable that "Alipay Tap" has achieved technological innovation, but in the highly mature mobile payment market environment, long-term success will inevitably require "Alipay Tap" to have significant differences and advantages in user experience, security, convenience, etc. This is actually full of challenges and worth looking forward to.
This paper is from Ulink Media, Shenzhen, China, the organizer of IOTE EXPO (IoT Expo in China)
