SHANGHAI residents spent more on average than those of any other Chinese provincial-level region in 2015 on Alipay, the country’s largest online payment platform, according to a new report.

    Average individual spending in the financial hub was 104,155 yuan (US$15,832) on Alipay last year, the highest in the country, according to the report, released Tuesday by Ant Financial, Alibaba’s financial service affiliate, which operates Alipay.

    Zhejiang Province in eastern China ranked second, with 94,192 yuan spent per person on average on Alipay, followed by Beijing, and the eastern coastal provinces of Jiangsu and Fujian.

    When it comes to total spending on Alipay, coastal provinces and more developed cities still took the lead, with Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai and Beijing rounding out the top five, according to the report.

    But China has also witnessed a boom in rural e-commerce, with central and western areas showing higher growth rates than more developed areas.

    Residents in China’s southwestern and northwestern regions were also more willing to pay via their mobile phones, according to the report. The report also showed that mobile transactions accounted for 65 percent of total transactions conducted via Alipay, which has a computer version and a mobile phone application.

    E-commerce is rising in China, with online sales surging 34.5 percent year on year to 3.45 trillion yuan in the first 11 months, accounting for 12.6 percent of gross retail sales, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

    The Ministry of Commerce estimated that e-commerce sales exceeded 18 trillion yuan for 2015.(Xinhua)