This article contains promotional content. (March 2015) |
WeChat red envelope (or WeChat red packet) is a mobile application developed by the Chinese technology company Tencent. The concept, also offered by its market competitors Alibaba and Baidu, is based on the Chinese tradition of hongbao (red envelope, or red packet), where money is given to family and friends as a gift. The application was launched by Tencent in January 2014 and has subsequently gained popularity, with Tencent reporting 2.3 billion transactions on 1 January 2016 alone.[1]
The application offers users the ability to give monetary gifts in the form of virtual "credits" to other users of the application. Money is deposited into a user's WeChat Pay account, which can be used for purchases. The app allows withdrawals from that account. There are two types of "red envelopes" offered by the app: pairwise red packets, in which money is sent in a private chat of two users, and group red packets, in which money is distributed in a group chat. With the latter, after it is posted, the amount of money within is randomly split and assigned to recipients in the group chat.[2]
Since WeChat launched its virtual red envelope campaign in 2014, WeChat Pay has more than doubled its market share.[3]