Apple Pay and Alipay cooperation is media's wishful thinking

Why is the iPhone 6 so easy to bend? Because Apple CEO Tim Cook just came out. But even if he came out, it doesn't mean he will get together with Jack Ma.

This is no wonder. Jack Ma has had three contacts with Cook recently. One was at the Advisory Board of Tsinghua University of Economics and Management, one was at the Wall Street Journal's D Conference, and the most recent one was on the 30th when Jack Ma and Alibaba Chief of Staff Zeng Ming appeared at Apple headquarters.

Especially at the D conference, both speeches by Jack Ma and Cook involved cooperation issues. The headlines reported by the domestic mainstream media were: Apple Pay and Alipay are almost a foregone conclusion; Apple Pay entered China through Alipay, and the battle for digital payment began.

Now that the media industry is so developed, let's take a look at how the American media reports. A report from the well-known American technology blog Techcruch, "Jack Ma's AliPay Might Partner With Apple Pay"

Jack Ma and Tim Cook both repeatedly teased a possible between The Paypal-like AliPay and Apple Pay in two separate partnership talks while on stage at the Wall Street Journal Digital conference in Laguna Beach, California this evening.

The rough translation is that Jack Ma and Cook keep hinting that there is a possibility of cooperation between Apple Pay and Alipay.

Don't lie to me, I am not well educated, but how come the mainstream domestic media have already regarded the cooperation between the two as a done deal?

The report later said that Cook joked with the WSJ's editor-in-chief Gerard Baker that he was going to go discuss a marriage between AliPay and Apple Pay after his talk.

Ma had hinted earlier that he was, “very interested in something like that,”

Cook joked that he would discuss the marriage of Apple Pay and Alipay; Ma hinted that he was interested in something like Apple Pay.

Which eye saw that the two were about to launch a vigorous cooperation?

The current situation of Apple Pay is that although it has the support of three major bank card organizations, six major banks, and 22,000 physical stores from the beginning, it has not been smooth sailing.

CVS and Rite-Aid, two large branches in the United States, boycotted Apple Pay and developed another mobile payment system, Current C.

Why is this? Because Apple Pay integrates the traditional payment chain, making the most troublesome payment link safe and simple, which is a transformational change. Traditional bank card organizations and banks still have the right to speak and share in this system, so they naturally support it with both hands.

However, the situation of the retail stores, which have been exploited, has not changed at all. Stores that choose Current C can save 2-3% of the handling fee. The profit of retail stores is not high to begin with. How much handling fee can be saved for a transaction volume of 1 trillion US dollars?

In fact, Walmart has long claimed to despise credit card fees because they continue to drain the company's thin profits, and it even filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa and MasterCard in 2003.

Mobile payment is a complex game that is neither entirely about technology nor about the market. Card organizations, banks, mobile phone manufacturers, Internet payment companies and other institutions are constantly negotiating and compromising. In China, operators also want to get a piece of the pie, especially China Mobile, which has also dominated a system.

The reason why Apple is so great and profitable, and can make money without any effort, is of course not just because of its technological strength. In terms of technology, Apple often has leapfrog development, which is called "black technology". For example, the birth of the iPhone was 4 years ahead of the entire technological era, and it dragged the world into the mobile Internet era by its own strength; in terms of business strategy, it is an integrated Tai Chi master who can balance various interest relationships, reconcile upstream and downstream, and ultimately promote the development of an industry. For example, Jobs used strategic negotiations to settle the four major record companies, and the entire record industry followed Apple's iTunes profit-sharing model.

We must focus on both technology and market, and both must be strong.

Apple Pay belongs to the latter. In order to take over the entire mobile payment market, Apple shrewdly retained the structure of the traditional payment chain, respected the established facts, but demanded that the benefits be shared equally (Americans have always liked to do this. The proposition of US President Wilson at the European Peace Conference after World War I was exactly the same!).

Internet payment is subversive to traditional payment. Unlike Apple’s requirement to share the rice in different bowls, Internet payment is not about sharing the rice, but about smashing the pot!

Theoretically, Alipay can kick out all middlemen and deal directly with retailers (yes, even the bank’s quick payment can be omitted because Alipay has its own capital pool Yu’ebao).

Alipay cannot find a place in Apple Pay's payment chain. This is the fundamental reason why Alipay and Apple Pay cannot cooperate.

If Alipay helps introduce Apple Pay, wouldn't that be like inviting a wolf into the house? Jack Ma is such a smart guy, how could he make such a mistake?

From a pragmatic perspective, the introduction of Apple Pay is not in line with national conditions. Why does Alipay need to be separated from the VIE-structured Alibaba Group? Jack Ma said that payment is in the national interest and must be 100% domestically owned. Others can ignore it, but the largest Alipay must comply with the regulations. Then the question is, no matter how unwilling UnionPay is, the countries that cooperate with UnionPay and Apple Pay will not let them in. Especially after the Apple iCloud leak, the security issue is hanging again (please, I know that Apple Pay uses hardware encryption technology that does not upload to iCloud, if you want to defend yourself, go to the relevant departments).

From a technical and market perspective, not all Apple phone users can use Apple Pay, only iPhone 6 and 6 plus users. How many of these users are there in China? Apple Pay will probably have to wait until the iPhone is upgraded to iPhone 10 before it can be popularized.

Internet payment theoretically covers all smartphones, including all Apple phones and many Android phones with outdated functions. Ordinary users do not need any hardware modification costs to pay with Alipay wallet.

Therefore, the fact that Jack Ma has met Cook a few times does not mean that Cook has fallen in love with Jack Ma, and Apple Pay's desire to enter China with the help of Alipay is nothing but wishful thinking on the part of the media.

Apple and Alibaba have a lot of business to do. Double Eleven is here, Apple wants to sell more goods, and Tmall Apple Store will definitely have a big promotion. Alibaba wants to enter the overseas e-commerce market, and Apple will definitely be able to help.

As for the cooperation between Apple Pay and Alipay, it is better to be cautiously optimistic.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.