China 101
Daily life apps
The super-apps and services that run everyday life in China, from payments to power banks.
微信
Tencent's super app that combines messaging, social feeds, payments, and millions of built-in mini programs, and is effectively the default operating system of daily life in China.
Alipay
支付宝
Ant Group's payment and lifestyle app, originally built as the escrow layer for Taobao, which together with WeChat Pay forms China's mobile payment duopoly.
QR code payment
扫码支付
China's dominant way of paying in person: scanning a merchant's QR code (or showing your own) through WeChat Pay or Alipay, which largely replaced cash and cards.
Mini programs
小程序
Lightweight apps that run instantly inside super apps like WeChat and Alipay without downloading, used for everything from ordering coffee to government services.
Food delivery (Meituan / Ele.me)
外卖
China's ultra-cheap, ultra-fast restaurant delivery system, dominated by Meituan (yellow) and Ele.me (blue), with riders visible on every street.
Ride hailing
网约车
App-based car rides, a market dominated in China by Didi Chuxing, which merged with Uber's China business in 2016.
Bike sharing
共享单车
Dockless rental bicycles unlocked by QR code, a Chinese-invented mobility category that boomed, crashed, and consolidated into a quiet urban utility.
Express delivery (Cainiao / SF Express)
快递
China's vast, cheap, and fast parcel delivery system, the world's largest by volume, which makes next-day delivery of almost anything a daily expectation.
Shared power banks
充电宝
Rentable portable batteries docked in kiosks across Chinese cities, rented by scanning a QR code and returnable at any station of the same network.