Alibaba is launching a new smartwatch seemingly designed to promote its Alipay mPayment service. Tellingly called the Pay Watch, it’s a relatively cheap device at about $160, with Alibaba seeking to crowdfund its development via Taobao, a China-based, eBay-like website.
The Pay Watch is expected to support Alipay transactions via QR codes and will also support online purchases with Taobao. According to VentureBeat, it features a 1.63″, 320 x 320 resolution, AMOLED display; 4GB of storage; magnetic charging; a dual-core processor; and a 36-hour battery life that can be extended with a power-saving mode. It’s also going to support the usual smartphone functions, such as push notifications for SMS, email, and so on, as well as some basic biometric capabilities like those seen on fitness-tracking devices. It runs on YunOS for Wear.
As VentureBeat’s Michael de Waal-Montgomery notes, the relatively low cost of the device (compared to something like the Apple Watch) suggests that Alibaba plans to sell it at close to cost, with the overarching aim being to further promote Alipay. That having been said, Alipay is already the dominant mPayment platform in China, and it’s likely to stay on top, though Apple and PayPal hope to make inroads in that market in the future. Possibly, the long-term goal is to use the Pay Watch to help promote Alipay beyond China’s borders as it is rolled out in other regions.
Source: VentureBeat
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