Singapore dominates mobile payment market for Chinese tourists

77% of Chinese tourists in the city use mobile payments.

Singapore ranked as the most preferred country in the world to do mobile payments amongst Chinese tourists, according to a report by Nielsen and Alipay. About 77% Chinese tourists in Singapore use mobile payments in transactions.

Correspondingly, the total amount spent by Chinese tourists in the Lion City increased by 14%.

Almost all Singaporean merchants (97%) indicated steady improvement in 2019 compared to the previous year in terms of mobile payment usage and the amount of mobile spending by Chinese tourists. They have outpaced their counterparts in South Korea, Japan, Australia, France, New Zealand, Canada, the UK and the US.

Singapore is not the only Southeast Asian country on top as Thailand got sixth place in the global ranking. In line with this, the report added that seven out of 10 (66%) surveyed merchants in Singapore, South Korea and the U.K. stated that they are looking to carry out more digital store operations through Chinese mobile payment platforms and hope to further their promotional and marketing activities leveraging Chinese mobile payment platforms.

Around 63% of them also said that they are likely to recommend Chinese mobile payment systems to their industry peers.