Alibaba and Tencent claim 1 billion accounts

China's third-party payment companies, mainly online payment service providers, have been growing rapidly in the past decade.

Alipay, the online payment arm of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, had a 46.6 percent share of the online payment market last year, followed by Tencent Holdings Ltd's Tenpay, with 20.9 percent.

Alipay had a total of 800 million registered accounts by the end of April, and Tenpay said it had 200 million registered users by the end of last year.