App use for public fees to cover more cities

Residents in more than 70 percent of Chinese cities will soon be able to use popular smartphone apps to pay their taxes and electricity bills, tech consultancy Gartner predicted in its latest report.

Many local governments have been prompted to offer online payment options for public services, the report said.

Of the country's 688 million netizens, more than 90 percent use smartphones to access the Internet, making mobile devices a crucial platform for businesses and government to engage with end users.

Internet conglomerates Tencent and Alibaba already offer public service payment options on their mobile apps for an increasing number of cities, with 70 covered by Tencent's instant messaging app WeChat and about 86 cities doing the same on Alibaba's mobile wallet Alipay - a penetration rate of around 30 percent, Gartner said.

"Both users and government will choose the most convenient channel or platform to demand or deliver public services," Gartner analyst Eileen He said.