Alipay and WeChat Pay see booming inbound spending in China during Labour Day holiday

Preliminary data from the country’s two dominant mobile payment apps show two-to-three times the spending from a year ago, much of it from Hong Kong

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QR codes for WeChat Pay (left) and Alipay seen at a grocery store in Beijing on September 19, 2020. Photo: AFP

Published: 8:00pm, 5 May 2025

Early figures from China’s two dominant mobile payment services, Alipay and WeChat Pay, showed strong inbound travel spending during the country’s five-day Labour Day holiday.

Alipay, a unit under Ant Group, said in a statement on Monday that both the number of transactions and total spending by inbound travellers across 13 e-wallets in its network – including those from Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Pakistan and South Korea – doubled in the May 1 to 5 period from a year ago. It attributed the growth to China’s updated tax refund and visa-free policies. Ant is the fintech affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the South China Morning Post.

The use of multiple mobile wallets from companies across Asia is enabled by Alipay+, a payment network that allows small and medium-sized businesses to accept electronic payments from international travellers. Ant’s own AlipayHK topped the list for total spending, followed by Malaysia’s Touch ’n Go e-Wallet and Kazakhstan’s Kaspi.kz, according to Alipay data.

The number of transactions through WeChat, the messaging and mobile payments super app operated by Tencent Holdings, from foreign users in mainland China nearly tripled in the first three days of the holiday. Preliminary numbers for the full five-day holiday show the total transaction volume of Hong Kong WeChat Pay users doubled compared with a year ago, the company said.

The number of transactions made with WeChat Pay by Chinese tourists travelling abroad increased 37 per cent year on year, according to Tencent.

The data reflected efforts by Chinese tech firms to facilitate cross-border travel as Beijing moves to boost inbound tourism and consumption amid economic headwinds.