There’s no doubt mobile payment volume is large and growing rapidly in China, but when it comes to putting exact numbers on that volume, well, that’s another matter entirely.

Earlier this week the state-owned People’s Daily cited a report by the Internet Society of China that estimated mobile payments in China will exceed 9 trillion yuan, or $1.45 trillion, in 2015. Yes, trillion. By way of comparison, Aite Group analysts have estimated US mobile payment volume for 2015 at $214 billion.

The People’s Daily went on to state, “In 2012, China’s mobile banking sector handled 800 billion yuan ($130.5 billion) in online payment transactions, an increase of 265.3% from a year earlier.” Note the language of this sentence — is it specifically mobile payments that is being discussed here, or just online payments?

At that rate of growth, payment volume could indeed reach 9 trillion yuan by 2015 — but it’s not clear that the article is actually discussing mobile payments.

The Gartner Group published a report in June estimating that the entire Asia Pacific region would reach mobile payment volume of $165 billion in 2016. Gartner sees worldwide mobile payment volumes reaching just $721 billion in 2017.

Arkady Fridman, senior analyst with Aite Group, pointed out that $1.45 trillion represents more than 10% of China’s current $12.61 trillion GDP. (Granted, it will be larger by 2015.) Mobile payments, 10% — does that ring a bell? It’s the number Starbucks has cited for mobile payment transactions.

“Starbucks is a bit of an anomaly,” Fridman said. “It would be unusual for China to have the same figure.”

Aite estimates China’s 2012 e-commerce volume at $200 billion. At 265% growth for two years, this yields about $1.4 trillion. So perhaps the numbers refer to total e-commerce volume rather than mobile payments — still a very impressive figure.