(Chinese Version)

On Friday, January 5th, Alipay’s Personal Annual Bill went viral on Chinese social media, especially on WeChat Moment.

Alipay released the 2016 Personal Annual Bill on January 5th, through which users can look up how much they had spent in 2016.

On January 4th, Alipay also released 2016 National Bill, which shows that 450 million users registered with their real name were using Alipay’s services. It also shows that mobile payment accounted for 71% of the total spending while the number in 2015 was 65%.

According to Alipay, the penetration rate of Alipay has been climbing due to the fact that users are getting accustomed to paying via their smartphones offline.

Looking from the total payment volume of provinces, Guangdong provinces ranks the first, accounting for 16% of the country’s whole volume, followed by Zhejiang and Jiangsu province.

However, Shanghai tops the chart on payment volume per capita with an average volume of ￥148,000, with Zhejiang, Beijing, Fujian and Jiangsu that had also crossed the ￥100,000 line following behind. In 2015, only Shanghai reached this level.

The millennials have been a great consumption power. In 2016, the generation Y in China had spent ￥120,000 (around $17,247) on average via online payment while mobile payment accounted for 92% of the generation Z’s payment activities. At present, the millennials take up 86% of the one hundred million Ant Credit Pay users, with one in every four young people of the generation Z is an Ant Credit Pay user. It’s apparent that today the consumption power in China differ greatly from that of 40 years ago, or even a century ago.

By the end of 2016, it’s recorded that more than 60% of the wealth management users are from third, fourth and fifth-tier cities and rural areas. In 2016 there were over 330 million users that had purchased Internet insurance services on Alipay. Aside from that, the utility and city public services were also becoming more diverse on Alipay.

In 2016, over one billion users had used the utility and city public services on mobile payment platforms, a year-on-year growth of 218%. 357 cities in the Country now provide such services, accounting for 54% of the total number of Chinese cities. Services include utilities, traffic fine payment, hospital appointment, marriage/divorce registration, organ donation registration, and pesticide spray drone reservation etc.

In-land province Tibet tops the chart on mobile payment penetration with a 90% rate, followed by Qinghai, and Gansu province, steps ahead of coastal provinces. Alipay’s Annual National Bill shows in 2016 people in Tibet topped up their phone 16.7 times via Alipay on average, a frequency far higher than other regions.

As a matter of fact, Tibet has been a continuous winner on mobile payment penetration rate since 2012. At present, all administrative villages in Tibet are covered by the mobile network, allowing even villagers in the most remote regions to purchase daily necessities via mobile payment platforms.

It should be noted that in 2016 Ant Credit Pay had been used for 3.2 billion times, a year-on-year growth of 344%. Up till now, Ant Cash Now boasts a user base of 12 million and has given out a total loan of ￥300 billion.

There are some other detail information about the millennials in this National Bill:

Millennials prefer to travel on their own instead of going with a tour group. Traveling on their own has become the mainstream traveling choice among young Chinese people for outbound travel. In 2016, overseas portable WiFi rental grew by 171% while car rental jumped by 110%.

Over 46% of the Generation Z often chose to eat out and 61% often ordered takeouts. If we take the Generation Y into consideration the percentage would be 85%.

Millennials are very interested in credit products and a large proportion of them have used them before. Credit product users under 35 account for 83% of the total user base.

Young people are increasingly pursuing better health and life quality. In 2016, health care product purchase had dropped by 13% while the number of outdoors activity product and skincare product purchase surged by 9% and 16% respectively. The figures from the generation Z are even more eye-catching, with a growth of 34% and 63% for outdoor activity purchase and skincare product purchase respectively.

Besides material pursue, the millennials also pay attention to their spiritual life. Their consumption contribution to entertainment sectors such as plays, gig and movie etc. took up 84% of the total volume.

The millennials are used to premature consumption, from coupons, subway ticket to expensive 3C products. At present, the millennials take up 86% of the one hundred million Ant Credit Pay users, with one in every four young people of the generation Z is an Ant Credit Pay user.

They are not the traditional people of high net worth that we talk about, so they like wealth management products with low threshold.

The gap between city and village is smaller among the young generation compared with their parents’ generation. Almost 40% of the Ant Credit Pay users are from third and fourth-tier cities and other regions. The millennials are enjoying financial services that are similar to what big cities have.

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Translated by Garrett Lee (Senior Translator at PAGE TO PAGE), working for TMTpost.