Login Trends in China

Ever since I started working for Auth0, an authentication and identity management service, I've become more aware of login security and user experience in the apps that I sign up for. In the US, email/username in addition to Single Sign-on with Google or Facebook are still the primary forms of authentication. China's state protected digital ecosystem has given rise to homegrown versions of Google, Facebook, Amazon and the likes. Email is less ubiquitous than phone numbers for identity management. Passwordless authentication, via SMS, is the main form of authentication in China.

Instead of Google or Facebook, you're likely to see Wechat, the biggest messaging platform, Weibo, the biggest microblogging platform, or Alipay, the biggest online payment platform as SSO methods. Even if you use social SSO, you will still need to enter your phone number in order to receive a one-time SMS code to finish the registration process. It seems that social might be a way for companies to gather more information about the user rather than being an expedited 1-click signup method. Once registration is complete, you'd be able to use it as a 1-click login method if you get logged out.

While interviewing some people in China, I noticed people are using two fast growing travel apps: FeiZhu 飞猪 (China's Skyscanner) and XiaoZhuDuanZu 小猪短租 (China's Airbnb). Both apps have pig in the name - not sure what the significance of pigs are for travel? I decided to check them out and here's what the registration process looks like for them:

FeiZhu (飞猪)

When you try to sign up for FeiZhu (see below), you'll see social options at the bottom for Taobao (the biggest e-commerce platform) and Alipay. In the icons, there is text that reads 'Click here to login'. Below the icons, there is another line of text that instructs you to use these platforms to login. It looks like they're pushing for third party or social SSO. Feizhu, Alipay, and Taobao are all owned by one company, and that is Alibaba, so it would make sense for them to push these login options to gather more data for a holistic view of their customers and to provide an integrated experience.

If we click on Free Signup, we're presented with the page below. You're asked to enter your phone number (with a drop down option to select other countries).

When you click on Next, you'll be asked to enter the one-time SMS code that is automatically sent.

While I'm more used to seeing Captcha codes or a checkbox to click on, for this app, to prevent accounts being created by bots, it asks you to swipe a bar to the right:

Now let's see what registration looks like with another app and what happens when we try to sign up with social.

XiaoZhuDuanZu

(小猪短租)

XiaoZhuDuanZu is AirBnB's biggest contender in China. For this app, you can see there is an option to use the good o' email and password option, but it is a small option. The default and preferred method is phone number. Once you enter your phone number, you click on the text link to get your SMS code. At the bottom, we can see Weibo and Wechat as alternative options.

Let's register with Wechat. Here you can see after clicking on Wechat, I am redirected to the app and asked to give permission for XiaoZhuDuanZu to access more info from me. Same as what happens with Google and FB auth.

After confirming, I am redirected back to XiaoZhuDuanZu, where I am asked to finish the registration process with a phone number and SMS code. It is a nice touch to have my Wechat profile picture and name presented at the top, as a way to encourage me to finish this step.

For both of these popular apps, that's 3-4 steps to sign up! It might seem like a bit of a hassle compared to what I'm used to in the US, but it appears to be more secure. It removes the need for passwords and makes sure I am who I say I am. The drawback to SMS registration is that if accidentally mistyped my phone number, I would have to wait a minute before I can edit the number and send another code. Sometimes, this is enough of a frustration for someone to close out of the app and forget to sign up later.