New | Chinese internet giants transplant 'red envelopes' holiday tradition to mobile cyberspace

Could the Chinese tradition of giving red envelopes with cash inside as gifts go digital during this year’s Lunar New Year holiday? That is what the new feature on Tencent’s flagship messaging mobile application WeChat, a “red envelope" add-on which went viral this weekend, aims to do.

The service introduced on Wechat is the latest clever integration of a Chinese element into a digital product. Since Sunday, the application has allowed its 600 million users around the world to send and receive virtual “red envelopes”, a popular Chinese practice.

Referred to as “lai see” in Cantonese or “hong bao” in Mandarin, the “red envelope” refers to a monetary gift that is put into a red envelope and distributed during big social gatherings such as the Lunar New Year or weddings, and is a big part of Chinese tradition and culture.

The amount of money put in each red envelope on WeChat is set to less than 200 yuan (HK$254) at the moment, which is then credited to the receiver’s bank account. But to make it more entertaining, an add-in function also allows a group of users to rush for one red envelope – so whoever is the first to open it in a group chat can receive it. Another choice available to the giver is to allow the system to randomly allocate an amount of money in one red envelope for a group of friends.

The novel feature appears to have spawned a craze over the weekend as it spread rapidly throughout WeChat’s pervasive user networks across the country. However it was Alibaba Group, one of Tencent’s biggest domestic competitors, that was first to introduce the concept of the “red envelope” service on its own newly-launched mobile messaging application “Laiwang” late last year. But due to its relative small user base, it did not become very popular.