On February 7th, the eve of this year’s Chinese Lunar New Year, Tencent’s WeChat, the popular messaging app in China with 650 million monthly active users, will appear on the large screens overlooking Times Square and send Lucky Money to pedestrians.<\/p>\n
In Chinese and other Asian societies, a red envelope, also known as a red packet, or hongbao, is a monetary gift – the \u00ablucky money\u00bb – which is given during holidays or special occasions.<\/p>\n
A giant \u00abred envelope\u00bb icon, representative of the Lucky Money contained within, will be shown on the screens overlooking the famous square. At certain times, pedestrians passing through the square will have an opportunity to \u00abearn\u00bb some Lucky Money by shaking their handsets as long as they have their Bluetooth and their WeChat \u00abshake\u00bb functions turned on. The money will go to the receivers’\u00a0digital\u00a0account in WeChat Wallet. Users can either withdraw or spend through WeChat Payment, a digital payment service provided by WeChat.<\/p>\n
The campaign was launched on February 1st, there was also lucky money on 2nd February and besides the 7th\u00a0(New Year’s eve) there will be WeChat hongbao on 8th\u00a0between 4pm and 9pm\u00a0local time, simply using WeChat’s \u00abshake\u00bb function in front of the screens.
\nWhile the Times Square campaign is on, WeChat Lucky Money is accessible all over the world.<\/p>\n
Other declinations of the campaign all over the world, even in offline stores<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Overseas Chinese and outbound tourists from Chinese mainland won’t miss WeChat Lucky Money. In\u00a0Taiwan,\u00a0Hong Kong,\u00a0Thailand,Indonesia,\u00a0South Korea,\u00a0Japan, and at many other places in\u00a0Southeast Asia, more than 2,000 stores have rolled out a WeChat payment promotion program during which shoppers can shake their phones and get Lucky Money after payment transacted through WeChat.<\/p>\n WeChat lucky money has turned into a digital tradition for Chinese people<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n This is the third year that WeChat runs the hongbao campaign. In fact, Chinese people have already adopted the habit of expressing their feelings through WeChat Lucky Money. Sending WeChat Lucky Money has gradually become a new trend and a cultural phenomenon.<\/p>\n The number\u00a0of\u00a0Lucky Money being sent and received via WeChat is soaring: 16 million \u00abred envelopes\u00bb containing lucky money were sent and received on the eve of\u00a0Chinese New Year\u00a0in 2014, while 1 billion such envelopes were sent and received on the same eve in 2015, followed by 500 million envelopes on Children’s Day, 1.4 billion on Chinese\u00a0Valentine’s Day, more than 2.2 billion during Mid-Autumn Festival (twice as many as on\u00a0New Year’s eve). 2.31 billion Lucky Money envelopes were sent and received on the last day of 2015.<\/p>\n Plans for worldwide online and offline expansion accompanies the rising number of Chinese travellers<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n WeChat Payment released its cross-border solution in\u00a0November 2015. The solution enables\u00a0Chinese\u00a0shoppers overseas to pay in yuan (RMB) without worrying about money exchange, while\u00a0WeChat\u00a0automatically\u00a0settles paymentwith retailers in\u00a0the\u00a0local currency.<\/p>\n Visitors from China spent approximately\u00a0$US 164.8 billion\u00a0on international tourism in 2014 and the number is expected to climb to\u00a0$US 200 billion\u00a0in 2015, as the trend indicates the spend increasing by 18% to 25% annually. The WeChat Payment team said that cross-border payments will continue to adhere to its Open Policy, whereby WeChat provides the basic solution while the actual servicing market is left to third-party partners who better understand the overseas markets.<\/p>\n In the past two years, WeChat has been developing and expanding their payment offering in the offline market. At present, more than 300,000 offline stores accept WeChat Payment. WeChat Payment plans to accelerate its overseas presence.<\/p>\n Image over the headline.-<\/strong> Pedestrians passing by in New York’s Times Square can win Lucky Money from WeChat, by shaking their cellphones, when the promotion appears on the large screens overlooking Times Square (NY, USA). (PRNewsFoto\/Tencent)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On February 7th, the eve of this year’s Chinese Lunar New Year, Tencent’s WeChat, the popular messaging app in China with 650 million monthly active users, will appear on the large screens overlooking Times Square and send Lucky Money to pedestrians. In Chinese and other Asian societies, a red envelope, also known as a red …<\/p>\n