More Users Turn to WeChat to Share Chinese New Year Greetings
Dou Shicong
DATE:  Feb 12 2019
/ SOURCE:  yicai
More Users Turn to WeChat to Share Chinese New Year Greetings More Users Turn to WeChat to Share Chinese New Year Greetings

(Yicai Global) Feb. 11 -- Users of Tencent Holdings' social app WeChat sent 64.2 percent more messages during the 2019 Chinese New Year than in 2018, as citizens look to digitize the traditional celebration.

They also exchanged 823 million digital red envelopes between Feb. 2 and Feb. 9, up more than 7.1 percent from a year earlier, Tencent said in a report released yesterday. Red envelopes, or hongbaos, are cash gifts typically received at important occasions, including national holidays but also major celebrations like weddings and birthdays.

Peak activity, defined as the period when most messages were exchanged and most updates were posted on WeChat Moments -- similar to Twitter's timeline -- was on Feb. 4, the Chinese New Year's Eve, the report added.

Those born after 1990 were more active than other age groups in terms of messages, updates, red envelopes and emojis sent. Beijing was the most popular city for sending and receiving red envelopes, followed by Guangzhou and Chongqing.

Users also looked to WeChat's eBook app, Read, for entertainment. They spent some 15.1 million hours reading during the holiday, again with those born after 1990 being the most active. Sci-fi hit Wandering Earth was the most popular book -- coinciding with the Feb. 8 release of a movie based on the novel.

Editor: James Boynton

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Keywords:   WeChat