A REPORT released by Alipay last week showed that the average amount spent on shopping by Shenzhen consumers was 11,000 yuan (US$1,599) per person on Alipay last year, higher than consumers in any other city in Guangdong Province.

    The report also showed that the average amount of total transactions Shenzhen residents made on Alipay was 116,000 yuan last year, the second-highest in Guangdong and the fourth-highest nationwide.

    Specifically, Shenzhen residents spent an average of 540 yuan per person on food and 129 yuan on late-night snacks via Alipay last year.

    Hong Kong, South Korea and Thailand are the favorite overseas shopping destinations for Shenzheners, and Shenzhen ranked third nationwide regarding the number of residents traveling overseas, according to the report.

    Shenzhen residents’ consumption of health-care products dropped by 9.5 percent over the past year, but their spending on outdoor sports went up by 12.7 percent and expenditure on beauty products soared by 41 percent.

    Meanwhile, the number of Shenzheners managing their money online saw an upward trend last year, with the number growing by 9.2 percent in the fourth quarter. Among these people, 83 percent of them are between 26 and 36 years old.

    About 330 million Chinese people bought insurance online last year, and nearly 10 million of them were living in Shenzhen, with 78 percent of them being less than 36 years old.

    The number of payments made by Shenzhen consumers on Credit Pay, which provides a similar service to credit cards on Alipay, soared by 77 percent over the past year. In the second half of last year, the amount of loans borrowed by Shenzhen users on Alipay’s Ant Cash Now jumped by 131 percent.

    As the Internet economy is changing people’s living habits, many things can be easily done with a mobile phone. Shenzhen is the first city nationwide that allows residents to pay medical bills and traffic violation penalties on Alipay.

    (Zhang Yang)