Alipay study: Online payments via smartphones gaining ground

Smartphones are likely to replace wallets in the near future as about 65 percent of the online payment deals last year were done with mobile devices, a new study said.

According to findings published by Alipay, the mobile payment unit of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, the percentage represents a big jump compared with 49.3 percent of the total transactions done by the same mode in 2014.

The company, which is the largest third-party payment service provider, said that mobile payment has been further changing people's everyday life along with the rapid growth of the online to offline business, including taxi-hailing and restaurant booking.