Apple Pay: 1% of Whole Foods transactions, Alibaba key in China?

With only three weeks since the launch of Apple’s new mobile payments service, Whole Foods has reported that it has processed 150,000 Apple Pay transactions – about 1% of the retailers total transactions in the same time period, according to calculations by Mike Dudas, former mobile commerce lead at Google and PayPal. Apple also appears to be moving ahead in establishing an Apple Pay partnership with Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba, as noted by Apple CEO Tim Cook during his interview last week at WSDJ Live. Such a partnership would likely help facilitate a much faster rollout of Apple Pay in China, according to a report by 9to5Mac, which notes that Alibaba is the key player in online shopping in the country, with an estimated 80% marketshare. Alibaba has already met the often complicated regulatory requirements to operate in China, suggesting that the Chinese government would be more receptive to a partnership between Apple and an existing major player in the Chinese market.