On Chinese New Year’s Eve, everyone on WeChat went crazy for ‘lucky money’

Chinese New Year’s Eve yesterday rang in the year of the monkey. It saw hundreds of millions of people using WeChat, China’s top messaging app, to send each other “lucky money” – virtual red envelopes full of cash.

WeChat has seen a total of 8.08 billion red envelopes sent so far.

Tencent, the maker of WeChat, said today that 420 million people sent each other lucky money via the app. At its peak, a few minutes after midnight as new year celebrations erupted and fireworks lit the sky across China, 409,000 red envelopes were sent through WeChat in a single second.

The tradition of giving cash-filled red envelopes has evolved in the smartphone age, with many people using WeChat – as well as Alibaba’s mobile wallet app Alipay – to gift small sums of cash to their friends as a goodwill gesture. Larger sums are reserved for family members, with the gifting still done largely with banknotes.

Social gifting

Tencent did not reveal how much cash was sent through WeChat in all those red envelopes.

But a lot more were sent this year than last year. WeChat has seen a total of 8.08 billion red packets sent so far during the lunar new year celebrations, which is eight times higher than last year’s tally.

Tencent observed that women were more generous – 56.5 percent of senders were female – while people in the southern province of Guangdong made it rain the most, sending out the greatest number of lucky money missives through the social app.

While physical red envelopes gifted to family members have to be pretty thick, it’s considered fine if the amount is tiny when it comes to lucky money sent though smartphone apps. It’s the fun that counts. Tencent found that the most popular amount gifted during this year’s celebrations was RMB 8.88 (US$1.35), chosen because eight is a lucky number in the culture.