China's Alipay has reached an agreement with Apple to make the payment service available in Apple retail stores across mainland China.
This marks the first third-party payment method to be accepted at Apple's brick-and-mortar stores anywhere in the world.
The agreement covers all 41 of Apple's physical stores in mainland China. Alipay was introduced as a payment option on the Apple China website and on the Chinese iTunes and App Store in November 2016.
Ant Financial's Alipay is the world's largest online and mobile payment platform with a market share across China of around 54% as of the fourth quarter of 2016. It was established in 2004 by Alibaba Group, and Alipay's parent company was rebranded to Ant Financial in 2015.
Alipay currently supports transactions in 18 major foreign currencies, and launched services in Hong Kong in 2017.