PayPal taps into China's 100M Baidu Wallet users

If you're a PayPal global merchant, you'll now have access to another 100 million potential online shoppers.

Zoey Chong Reporter

Zoey is CNET's Asia News Reporter based in Singapore. She prefers variety to monotony and owns an Android mobile device, a Windows PC and Apple's MacBook Pro all at the same time. Outside of the office, she can be found binging on Korean variety shows, if not chilling out with a book at a café recommended by a friend.

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Zoey Chong

July 26, 2017 11:14 p.m. PT

There are over 1.3 billion consumers in China, and PayPal wants a piece of the market.

The king of digital payments has partnered with Chinese search giant Baidu to bring Chinese online shoppers to PayPal's 17 million international e-commerce sites. They'll be able to pay with local mobile payment service Baidu Wallet, the companies said in a statement today.

The payoff is big for PayPal's global merchants, who will tap the lucrative Chinese market and the 100 million users registered on Baidu Wallet. That's almost half the number of PayPal's current 210 million active accounts.

PayPal isn't the first foreign entity cashing in on China's hugely lucrative market. US startup Stripe announced its collaboration with Chinese digital payment services Alipay and WeChat Pay earlier this month to enable the same service.

Though there are upwards of 100 million users registered on Baidu Wallet, according to Baidu, the digital payment market is dominated by Alipay and WeChat Pay, which have a combined share of 92 percent.

CNET has reached out to Baidu and PayPal for comments.

First published July 26, 11:14 p.m. PT.
Update July 27 at 6:52 p.m.: Updates PayPal's user base based on Q2 earnings release.

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