For Spring Festival 2017, Chinese who used the digital hongbao were more generous compared to 2016. Using WeChat’s digital hongbao, or lucky money packets, 14.2 billion digital hongbao were exchanged on New Year’s eve.
It is up 75.7 percent higher compared to the same period last year, according to WeChat, Global Times reported. It is larger than the 8 billion e-hongbao transactions handled by Tencent, WeChat’s mother company, in Spring Festival 2016.
Red Envelopes
Before the digital age, Chinese gave good luck cash on the eve of Chinese New Year inside red envelopes. WeChat introduced the e-hongbao in 2014 which challenged the dominance of Alibaba’s Alipay in handling digital hongbaos. However, Alipay fought back by launching the augmented reality card by adding more Pokemon GO-inspired ingredients to its cash gifting function.
Alipay also continued its campaign to ask users to collect five different styles of fu or good fortune. It gave away 200 million yuan ($29 million) in cash and coupons to Alipay users who completed the collection which reached about 168 million users. Alipay gave away hongbao with random amounts of money up to 666 yuan.
Augmented Reality Marketing Campaign
While WeChat had no hongbao-grabbing activities in 2017, QQ, a Tencent company, launched its augmented reality-featured marketing campaign beginning Jan. 20 which attracted 342 million users. About 68 percent of those who participated in the activity were millennials. The 342 million is higher than the 308 million who participated in a similar QQ campaign in 2016.
The twist to the Chinese Lunar New Year tradition has been offered by Alibaba and Tencent the past three years through their mobile payment platforms. However, for 2017, rather than send digital red envelopes to their users, the two sent it through high-street vendors.
Financial Times explained that the two launched the Spring Festival add-ons to encourage users to give physical objects using their apps in the hope the habit would stick. The payments are often completed by scanning a physical QR code. Chen Jin, assistant professor at China Europe International Business School, noted that Chinese consumers are used to swiping QR codes in WeChat.