China Telecom Bestpay to boost presence in mobile payment

China Telecom Bestpay, a wholly owned subsidiary of China Telecom Corp committed to mobile payment, announced Thursday plans to invest 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) in resources to boost its presence in the fast-growing market.

The company announced its marketing plan, which is aimed to reduce marketing costs and increasing revenue for Bestpay's business partners. The plan will cover payment services, resource sharing and integrated marketing, according to Chen Yiwen, vice-general manager of the company.

According to the plan, China Telecom Bestpay will promote its payment service with a cheaper service fee and provide its partners a more user-friendly experience. China Telecom Bestpay will vary its service to different partners based on itheir business sizes, brands and revenues.

China Telecom Bestpay will achieve full resource sharing with its business partners in customer information, channels, risk management and big data, creating a leverage effect regarding branding and marketing.

In terms of integrated marketing, China Telecom Bestpay offered online and offline users a certain amount off in transactions through its product Bestpay, a third-party payment platform. Up to January 2016, the app had attracted over 290 million users and became the third-largest payment platform operator following Alipay and Wechat.

China Telecom Bestpay's business partners cover a wide range of industries including e-commerce giants like JD.Com Inc and retailers like Familymart.

The company now has services covering nearly 400 major cities across the nation with over 3 million offline business partners and 150 online e-commerce platforms, according to Chen.