Technology
China’s Digital Wallets Offer a Glimpse at the Future of Payments
Chinese consumers conduct 11 times more mobile payments than their counterparts in the United States, so as we look to the future of digital wallets, China is a natural place to start.
Forecasts for mobile payment adoption in the United States remain flat for now; however, two major brands – WeChat and AliPay – offer a glimpse of what the future may eventually hold for mobile payments in North America.
Digging Through WeChat’s Wallet
WeChat, a platform owned by Tencent, is a force to be reckoned with. It’s fast closing in on one billion monthly active users (MAUs), and the average user spends over an hour on the app each day.
WeChat users aren’t just unusually chatty – there’s actually a high level of utility to the platform that North American apps have yet to match. WeChat’s wallet alone is packed with features ranging from mobile payments to ride hailing. Below is a look at just some of the features.
WeChat’s wallet is packed with features that are constantly evolving, but here are some current features worth noting:
Payments in the real world
“Scan-and-pay” is widely popular in China, particularly in big cities where it’s hard to find a product or a service that cannot be purchased with a mobile device. According to China Channel, over 90% of Chinese consumers have adopted WeChat as a method of payment in offline purchases. That compares with a 32% adoption rate for debit and credit cards.
Red Packets
WeChat has seen tremendous growth of its wallet by capitalizing on China’s tradition of gifting cash-filled red envelopes (known as hongbao). In fact, the volume of digital red packets sent has skyrocketed from 16 million to 14.2 billion in only three years.
Digital Tip Jar
WeChat also offers a glimpse at a new avenue for content creators to monetize their hard work online. WeChat’s Tip Jar feature allows users to send micro-payments to writers, musicians, artists, and more.
Go Dutch
Splitting the bill in a busy restaurant or pub setting can be major hassle. “Go Dutch” is a feature that allows WeChat users to divvy up a bill and pay using the app. Features like Go Dutch make digital payments an appealing option because they solve a real world problem.
Third-Party Apps
WeChat has robust third-party integration within its wallet. Functionality is so deep that users can order anything from transportation to home cleaning services with the push of a button. China’s largest e-commerce, group buy, and ride hailing companies are already on these platforms, but Western brands like Starbucks are getting in on the action too.
Going Head-To-Head
The mobile payments sector is becoming increasingly binary as WeChat and AliPay dogfight for market share. AliPay – Ant Financial’s payment brand – was once the undisputed leader in mobile payments, but the company has recently seen its market share eroded by an increasingly scrappy WeChat. WeChat has smartly leveraged its popularity and massive user base to get people using it as a payment tool as well.
ApplePay, which had high hopes for the Chinese market, continues to lag far behind domestic brands.
Growing Pains for Digital Wallets
China’s central bank recently imposed tougher rules regarding scan-and-go payments, a move that Ant Financial and Tencent are publicly praising, but that may dampen the meteoric growth trajectory of mobile payments. The new regulations take aim at aggressive tactics used to capture market share from competitors, and set limits on how much consumers can spend daily using barcode-based payments.
Despite growing pains, mobile payments and digital wallets will continue to be a dominant part of the Chinese economy. The only question is, when will the rest of the world follow suit?
Technology
Ranked: America’s 20 Biggest Tech Layoffs Since 2020
How bad are the current layoffs in the tech sector? This visual reveals the 20 biggest tech layoffs since the start of the pandemic.

Ranked: America’s 20 Biggest Tech Layoffs This Decade
The events of the last few years could not have been predicted by anyone. From a global pandemic and remote work as the standard, to a subsequent hiring craze, rising inflation, and now, mass layoffs.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, essentially laid off the equivalent of a small town just weeks ago, letting go of 12,000 people—the biggest layoffs the company has ever seen in its history. Additionally, Amazon and Microsoft have also laid off 10,000 workers each in the last few months, not to mention Meta’s 11,000.
This visual puts the current layoffs in the tech industry in context and ranks the 20 biggest tech layoffs of the 2020s using data from the tracker, Layoffs.fyi.
The Top 20 Layoffs of the 2020s
Since 2020, layoffs in the tech industry have been significant, accelerating in 2022 in particular. Here’s a look at the companies that laid off the most people over the last three years.
Rank | Company | # Laid Off | % of Workforce | As of |
---|---|---|---|---|
#1 | 12,000 | 6% | Jan 2023 | |
#2 | Meta | 11,000 | 13% | Nov 2021 |
#3 | Amazon | 10,000 | 3% | Nov 2021 |
#4 | Microsoft | 10,000 | 5% | Jan 2023 |
#5 | Salesforce | 8,000 | 10% | Jan 2023 |
#6 | Amazon | 8,000 | 2% | Jan 2023 |
#7 | Uber | 6,700 | 24% | May 2020 |
#8 | Cisco | 4,100 | 5% | Nov 2021 |
#9 | IBM | 3,900 | 2% | Jan 2023 |
#10 | 3,700 | 50% | Nov 2021 | |
#11 | Better.com | 3,000 | 33% | Mar 2022 |
#12 | Groupon | 2,800 | 44% | Apr 2020 |
#13 | Peloton | 2,800 | 20% | Feb 2022 |
#14 | Carvana | 2,500 | 12% | May 2022 |
#15 | Katerra | 2,434 | 100% | Jun 2021 |
#16 | Zillow | 2,000 | 25% | Nov 2021 |
#17 | PayPal | 2,000 | 7% | Jan 2023 |
#18 | Airbnb | 1,900 | 25% | May 2020 |
#19 | Instacart | 1,877 | -- | Jan 2021 |
#20 | Wayfair | 1,750 | 10% | Jan 2023 |
Layoffs were high in 2020 thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, halting the global economy and forcing staff reductions worldwide. After that, things were steady until the economic uncertainty of last year, which ultimately led to large-scale layoffs in tech—with many of the biggest cuts happening in the past three months.
The Cause of Layoffs
Most workforce slashings are being blamed on the impending recession. Companies are claiming they are forced to cut down the excess of the hiring boom that followed the pandemic.
Additionally, during this hiring craze competition was fierce, resulting in higher salaries for workers, which is now translating in an increased need to trim the fat thanks to the current economic conditions.
Of course, the factors leading up to these recent layoffs are more nuanced than simple over-hiring plus recession narrative. In truth, there appears to be a culture shift occurring at many of America’s tech companies. As Rani Molla and Shirin Ghaffary from Recode have astutely pointed out, tech giants really want you to know they’re behaving like scrappy startups again.
Twitter’s highly publicized headcount reduction in late 2022 occurred for reasons beyond just macroeconomic factors. Elon Musk’s goal of doing more with a smaller team seemed to resonate with other founders and executives in Silicon Valley, providing an opening for others in tech space to cut down on labor costs as well. In just one example, Mark Zuckerberg hailed 2023 as the “year of efficiency” for Meta.
Meanwhile, over at Google, 12,000 jobs were put on the chopping block as the company repositions itself to win the AI race. In the words of Google’s own CEO:
“Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today… We have a substantial opportunity in front of us with AI across our products and are prepared to approach it boldly and responsibly.”– Sundar Pichai
The Bigger Picture in the U.S. Job Market
Beyond the tech sector, job openings continue to rise. Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed a total of 11 million job openings across the U.S., an increase of almost 7% month-over-month. This means that for every unemployed worker in America right now there are 1.9 job openings available.
Additionally, hiring increased significantly in January, with employers adding 517,000 jobs. While the BLS did report a decrease in openings in information-based industries, openings are increasing rapidly especially in the food services, retail trade, and construction industries.
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