Alipay, one of China's biggest independent third-party Internet payment platforms, has achieved a strategic cooperation with the online game operator Giant Interactive to enhance Giant's online payment system.

With the cooperation, Giant Interactive Group will further strengthen its online payment and Internet direct marketing functions, offer convenience for the payment needs of players and reduce its operating costs. At the same time, the cooperation will help Alipay to enlarge its user group, especially in the online game sector.

Jack Ma, president and CEO of Alibaba Group, which owns Alipay, is quoted by local media and says he has been trying to cooperate with Shi Yuzhu, president of Giant Interactive Group, for a long time and the wish is finally realized.

By May 6, 2008, Alipay claims to have over 80 million users and its daily transaction amount is more than 1.5 million with total trading volume of over CNY350 million. Apart from Taobao.com and Alibaba, there are more than 460,000 other merchants that use the payment service of Alipay. The latest released report on China's online shopping in 2008 by CNNIC shows that in electronic payment sector, the market share of Alipay has reached 76.2%.