WeChat red envelopes help drive online payments use in China
Enterprises and celebrities give away plenty of digital money for promotional purposes
WeChat, China’s predominant mobile messaging service, continues to expand the adoption of digital payment activities on the mainland, with use of its consumer-to-consumer electronic “red envelope” feature growing 903 per cent year on year this Lunar New Year.
Chinese internet giant Tencent, which operates WeChat, said on Monday there were 32.1 billion red envelopes sent out via WeChat – known as Weixin on the mainland – between February 7 and 12 to mark the Lunar New Year, up from 3.2 billion in the same period last year.
It is a tradition in Chinese communities around the world for people to exchange red envelopes on festive occasions.
That has become a huge activity on the mainland during the Spring Festival, which runs up to two weeks, with enterprises and popular entertainment celebrities joining in to give away plenty of digital money for promotional purposes.
Data from WeChat showed that 516 million users participated in exchanging electronic red envelopes over the service during the period in review. More than 92 per cent of the red envelopes were sent by internet users aged between 20 and 29.
I sent dozens of red envelopes to my friends, classmates, colleagues and relatives
A Barclays report said Tencent “encouraged repeated usage of WeChat Pay and QQ Wallet by subsidising bank handling charges for consumer-to-consumer money transfers, which it offers to users largely for free”.