The emergence of multiplatform ecosystems: insights from China's mobile payments system in overcoming bottlenecks to reach the mass market

Abstract

This paper examines the preconditions and processes necessary for multiplatform ecosystems to emerge, grow and prosper, with particular emphasis on how bottlenecks that constrain their scale-up can be overcome. Using a longitudinal case study, we track how China developed the world's largest mobile payments industry based on multiplatform ecosystems. Different from ecosystems mediated by a single multi-sided platform, multiplatform ecosystems provide mechanisms to realize complementarity between multiple platforms, sometimes across different industries, to co-create greater value than individual platforms can in isolation and to overcome barriers that stand in the way of mass scale-up. These barriers include: establishing an agreed market architecture; catalysing changes in user behaviour; and earning legitimacy in its socio-technical system. We show how the lead firms play an important role in overcoming these barriers to drive multiplatform ecosystem evolution, enabling the development of other businesses in the ecosystem, and promoting the accumulation of what we term ‘ecosystem goods’ that help the ecosystem create and capture value collectively. These findings enrich our theoretical understanding of the importance of complementary relationships and overcoming barriers to their formation in enabling multiplatform ecosystems to nurture the emergence and scale-up of a nascent industry. We also draw lessons for practising managers and policy implications.