Apple links China’s UnionPay cards to App Store

After a long wait, Apple’s Chinese customers can pay for goods in its App Store with the country’s most popular credit and debit card service, paving the way for new growth in virtual spending on the media, games and apps Apple offers online.

苹果公司的中国客户们经过长期等待之后，终于能够通过中国最广为使用的信用卡和借记卡服务，在该公司的App Store支付商品费用了，这为实现苹果在线商店中的媒体产品、游戏，以及应用软件的虚拟消费新增长铺平了道路。

The United States technology giant said in a Monday statement that Chinese users could now use China UnionPay cards to buy items in the App Store.

这家美国技术行业巨头在周一的一份声明中表示，中国用户现在可以使用中国银联卡在App Store中购买商品。

The agreement with UnionPay should make purchases much more convenient for Chinese users, who before had to set up prepaid accounts by sending money from a bank account to the Apple store to make purchases.

与银联达成的协议应该让中国用户能更方便地进行购买，以前他们需要设立预付账户、把钱从银行转帐过来才能在苹果商店购买商品。

With a virtual monopoly on card payments in China, UnionPay also gives Apple instant access to a huge swath of new potential customers. More than 4.5 billion UnionPay cards have been issued to date, according to the Apple release.

银联几乎垄断着中国的银行卡支付，这项协议也将让苹果在顷刻之间得以触及大片新潜在客户。根据苹果公司的新闻稿，迄今发放的银联卡已超过45亿张。

That is good news for Apple, and also for the burgeoning economy of mobile application makers in China, who sell their software on the App Store and share revenue with Apple.

这对苹果来说是个好消息，对中国新兴的移动应用开发行业来说也是好消息，他们通过在App Store销售自己的软件与苹果分享营业收入。

‘‘China is already our second-largest market for app downloads, and now we’re providing users with an incredibly convenient way to purchase their favorite apps with just one tap,’’ Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, said in the release.

“中国已经是我们应用软件下载的第二大市场，现在我们正在为用户提供一个特别方便的方法，只需点击一下就可以购买他们喜欢的应用，”苹果公司主管互联网软件服务的高级副总裁埃迪·库埃在新闻稿中说。

Mr. Cue added that the ability for customers to link their Apple IDs with UnionPay cards had been the most requested feature from Chinese.

库埃还说，中国客户最希望得到的功能是将他们的AppleID与银联卡联接起来。

That’s not surprising, given the number of steps Chinese consumers needed to take — including selecting their bank, providing an online banking password, and then depositing a minimum of 50 renminbi, or about $8, to set up a prepaid account — just to make a purchase from the App Store.

这一点也不奇怪。中国消费者在线购物需要很多步骤，包括选择他们的银行，提供网上银行密码，然后在设立的预付帐户中存至少50元人民币，只有在这些步骤之后，他们才能在App Store进行购买。

"It should have a very significant impact,’’ said Mark Natkin, founder and managing director of the tech research firm Marbridge Consulting in Beijing.

“这应该有非常显著的效果，”北京迈博瑞咨询有限公司创始人及执行董事马克·纳特金说。

"So many of these things in the App Store you are buying on a whim anyway. If you’re buying something on a whim and you don’t care that much, your patience with a multistep process is pretty thin,’’ he added.

“人们在App Store中购买的那么多东西反正都是一时兴起。如果你一时兴起地购物，你不在乎那么多，你对按部就班过程的耐心也相当少，”他补充说。

Since its creation in 2002 as an interbank transaction and settlement system to unify Chinese bank cards, UnionPay has been well protected from competition by China’s powerful central bank.

银联成立于2002年，是一个把中国的银行卡统一起来的银行间交易和结算系统，中国影响力巨大的央行一直大力保护银联不受竞争压力。

The new agreement gives Apple an important, and nearly ubiquitous, partner in the country.

新协议使苹果在中国得到一个重要的、几乎无处不在的合作伙伴。

The cooperation also provides a new advantage over Google’s Android mobile operating system.

这一合作也提供了针对谷歌的Android移动操作系统的新优势。

Because the Google Play app store is blocked in China, several independent app stores have sprung up supporting Android. With quality control sometimes lax and payment systems inconsistent, customers are generally more willing to spend money on Apple’s store than on the Android stores, according to analysts.

由于中国屏蔽了Google Play应用商店，支持Android系统的几家独立应用软件商店涌现出来。据分析人士称，这些独立店的质量控制有时不够严格，支付系统也不一致，所以客户通常更愿意把钱花在苹果在线商店，而不花在支持Android系统的应用软件商店。