Here’s how McDonald’s and KFC are adapting in China

By John KellContributing Writer and author of CIO Intelligence

BEIJING, CHINA - 2014/07/22: A KFC restaurant in a shopping mall. KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut and other Western brands are suffering a food safety crises in the Chinese market. On July 20, 2014, Shanghai Fuxi food Ltd. the meat supplier for well-known international fast food chains such as McDonalds and Yum Group, was exposed for using expired and bad chicken and beef. (Photo by Zhang Peng/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Photograph by Zhang Peng LightRocket — Getty Images

McDonald’s and Yum Brands’ KFC have each recently unveiled plans to tinker with mobile payments in China, a move to lure the nation’s hundreds of millions smartphone users that increasingly use those devices for their day-to-day needs.

Mobile payment adoption has already accelerated here in the U.S., with restaurant chains such as Starbucks (SBUX) aggressively adding the tech upgrade to their retail locations. Restaurant chains are now figuring out they need to employ that technology in China, too.

McDonald’s (MCD) is starting mobile payments and ordering in China under a pilot program in the current quarter, according to The Wall Street Journal. Yum (YUM) recently said its KFC business teamed up with Alibaba (BABA) to launch a mobile-payment service for 700 of its 4,500-plus stores in the country.

Experts say that mobile payments are actually taking off faster in China than in the U.S., the Journal reported, because the Chinese don’t use credit cards as widely as American consumers. And while many home-grown retailers already use mobile payments, Wal-Mart (WMT) and KFC are actually early adopters among their peers.