US retail giant Walmart seems to be making greater progress with a plan to offer in-store payments via mobile phones in China than its more higher profile service back in the States.

According to Xinhua, the retailer is joining forces with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba to offer mobile payments in 25 stores in the southern China city of Shenzhen.

Users can now pay with Alipay Wallet, a mobile app developed by Alibaba’s payments unit. Cashiers in the Walmart stores will scan barcodes in the app to take payment.

Walmart said it expects more of its stores to accept payments in the future.

Back home, Walmart is also proposing to use a QR code-based mobile payment service but has been slow in bringing it to market. Although conceived with partners, Walmart is the leading light behind CurrentC, which is due to launch in a single, unspecified market in the US in mid-2015.

In the US, Walmart is lagging Apple, which launched a rival mobile payment service (Apple Pay) at the end of 2014, and is also looking to further turn the screws with a launch in China.