In China’s newly issued 13th Five-Year Plan, innovation has been highlighted as one of the crucial cornerstones for economic growth. And the State Council earlier set the year 2025 as the target year for the “Internet Plus” plan to become the major driving force of the country’s innovation development.

In recent years, China’s innovation sector, especially the Internet industry, has had a series of achievements.

In the second quarter of this year, more than $500 billion worth of payments were made through mobile payment services in China. About 85 percent of them were accomplished through Alipay and WeChat. In US, Google Wallet is struggling to attract users. And according to InfoScout, only 13 percent of iPhone users used Apple Pay this March, and that number is still decreasing.

China’s Internet finance sector also stands out. Maybe nothing more so than last November 11th, the biggest online shopping day in China. Online trade volume reached $2 billion in the first hour on China’s major shopping websites Taobao and Tmall. That was the equivalent to what all US online merchants achieved in one day’s time.

Online-to-offline, or O2O services such as food takeout, medicine delivery, and even door-to-door hair cutting and nail-painting, have become very popular in China. O2O service providers, such as Helijia and Kunfu Bear have been serving 7-10 megacities in China.