Apple today announced it had partnered with China UnionPay, the state-run company that is the country’s only bank-card issuer, to bring Apple Pay to the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

“China is an extremely important market for Apple and with China UnionPay and support from 15 of China’s leading banks, users will soon have a convenient, private and secure payment experience,” Eddy Cue, Apple’s top executive for the Cupertino, Calif. company’s mobile point-of-sale payment service, said in a Friday statement.

Cue is right about China being an important market for Apple: In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the Greater China region — the PRC, Hong Kong and Taiwan — was responsible for 25% of Apple’s total revenue, second only to the Americas. More importantly, Greater China accounted for most of Apple’s growth. In the most recently-reported quarter, the region’s revenue jumped 99% over the same period in 2014.

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