Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com has started accepting Alipay for payments after the announcement of its logistics deal with rival Alibaba Group Holding’s Cainiao, another sign that the “walled gardens” in China’s tech world are continuing to break down.
Alipay, the largest mobile wallet in China operated by Ant Group, was made available for consumers shopping on JD.com, the payment service provider said in a Weibo post on Tuesday evening. Ant is a fintech affiliate of Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post.
JD.com and Alibaba have been arch rivals in China’s e-commerce industry for years, but both face fresh competition from new players such as PDD Holdings and ByteDance-owned Douyin, the sister app of TikTok.
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The Alipay move comes on the heels of Alibaba’s logistics arm Cainiao announcing it would provide services on JD.com. Starting Monday, third-party merchants on JD.com were offered the option of using courier services from Cainiao, and from next month they will be able to have large furniture and home appliances shipped, delivered and installed by Cainiao personnel.
The JD.com logo is seen on a helmet of a delivery man in Beijing. Photo: Reuters alt=The JD.com logo is seen on a helmet of a delivery man in Beijing. Photo: Reuters>
Earlier this month, Alibaba began working with JD.com’s logistics services, from warehousing to shipping, on its Taobao and Tmall marketplaces.
China’s Big Tech companies, however, have started to dismantle so-called walled gardens that separate the country’s cyberspace into isolated ecosystems, following Beijing’s crackdown on monopolistic practices in 2021 and call for greater interconnectivity in the industry.
Earlier this month, Tencent also began letting users shop on Taobao directly through its WeChat app.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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