Alibaba said its Alipay unit is now the second largest online payment service in the world (behind eBay's PayPal), and exceeded 100 million registered users last month. By partnering with domestic PRC banks to provide an escrow service for payments, Alipay enables individuals and businesses in China to execute payments online in a secure manner, reducing the settlement risks faced by Alipay's customers in their ecommerce transactions. At the end of August 2008, Alipay was facilitating 2 million transactions each day and had a daily payment volume of RMB450 million.

Alipay is the designated online payment service on Taobao's consumer ecommerce marketplace, which has 80 million registered users. Alipay has also become an accepted payment method for an increasing number of online retail websites and service providers outside the Taobao ecosystem. Large corporations such as Giant, Shenzhen Airlines, Joyo.com (part of Amazon.com) and Dell use Alipay as their preferred online payment method in China. Some Chinese government departments and public utilities have also adopted Alipay to enable people to pay for everyday expenses, ranging from medical insurance in Guangdong province to telephone bills in Jiangsu province.

In a press statement, the company said, "Thanks to its escrow-based system and broad accessibility, Alipay has become an important supplement to mainstream payment methods in China, a country where credit cards are not widely used."