An emerging study suggested that Chinese mobile payments were about 50 times greater than that of the US in 2016, showing Chinese companies' strong position on the market.

According to iResearch Global, transaction volumes for Chinese mobile payments soared to 10 trillion yuan ($1.45 trillion) in 2015. The figure is expected to more than double to 22 trillion yuan ($3.20 trillion) this year, thanks to the explosive growth of online shopping and internet financial services like peer-to-peer lending and online money market funds.

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China significantly surpassed US' transaction volumes that only stood at $8.71 billion in 2015, despite many tech giants' efforts to promote mobile payment features on its devices.

Last year, many physical retailers, particularly overseas, have also started adopting mobile payments to cater the trend. For instance, Starbucks started to accept WeChat Pay in its China stores. And even online to offline services like hailing a cab and food delivery apps also soared as customers pay via third-party mobile platforms.

Alibaba, accounting for 51.8 percent of all Chinese mobile payments, is also promoting its "Airport of the Future" initiative, which partners with airlines and airports to accommodate Chinese tourists travelling abroad. It also teamed up with local players across the world to expand its payment on all types of points of sale (PoS) terminal operators. Among its partners are Europe's Zapper, Southeast Asia's Ascend, Japan's Recruit, South Korea's KICC, Wirecard, to name a few. It also recently acquired money transfer firm Moneygram to help Alipay establish a stronghold in the US.

That being said, the value of Chinese mobile payment services more than tripled to 38 trillion yuan ($5.5 trillion) last year, with Alibaba and Tencent's WeChat dominating the market. In the US, mobile payments only increased by 39 percent to $112 billion, with shares of the market distributed among rival firms like Apple, Google, PayPal, and Samsung, Forrester Research noted.

The significant lead of China over the US could also be attributed to the lack of other non-cash payments in the mainland. China does not have a strong credit card culture, while debit cards are a hassle. Alipay and WeChat offer more convenience, requiring only the scan of a QR code from a retailer's terminal or smartphone.

However, QR scanning is unlikely to hit high in the US and Europe as they both prefer near field communication payments, which involve swiping a smartphone on a chip reader. Furthermore, while China still reigns in the mobile payment growth, US' biggest growth driver will be in-person payments in offline retailers.