Mobile government is a new way to deliver digital services.It is characterized by a public-private partnership.In this article we use theories of innovation diffusion and cross-sectoral collaboration to examine empirically what drives the development of mobile government.An analysis of multi-source，cross-sectional data on prefectural-level cities reveals that user demands，government motivations and capabilities，and intergovernmental relations play pivotal roles in facilitating Alipay's city services.Specifically，more innovative，higher-ranked cities covering larger user populations and facing fierce peer competition develop mobile governments more rapidly.These findings help to understand and narrow the mobile government disparities among cities and they provide theoretical implications and policy suggestions.