While the government has been sending signals that it would support the platform economy moving forwards, tech companies will probably want to remain low profile in order not to jinx it. Second, after two years of crackdowns, tech companies have become cautious.

Some people are arguing that the engagement of the New Year Gala itself is dwindling, but that is probably relatively a minor point. It has therefore become unfeasible and impossible to acquire dozens of millions of users more through one campaign. So why are the consumer tech giants missing this year?įirst, most tech majors who could afford or justify the sponsorship of red packet campaigns would have plateaued in their user acquisition – Wechat now has close to 1.3 billion monthly active users (MAUs) Alibaba has more than 900 million Douyin close to 700 million. That might be less of a surprise, because J&T’s Chinese name – 极兔 – contains the very zodiac of the year : Rabbit (兔).īut J&T’s presence is more for branding as platforms/sellers, not consumers, choose which logistics provider to work with (also J&T will probably need to go public soon) while previously consumer tech giants used red packet campaigns predominantly for user acquisition. (Read more about that in our report: who is J&T ). The company that made a (sponsored) appearance was Indonesia-originated J&T Express, which quickly propelled itself to be amongst the top ecommerce logistics companies in China. However, with no sponsorship from Meituan, ele.me or Didi, we would only see performers wearing unbranded generic uniforms: In fact, there was no red packet campaign at this year’s gala.Īt the gala there was a song/dance and a skit on platform workers (ride-hailing, food delivery, ecommerce delivery) which powered the lifestyle of urban Chinese consumers. Until this year – where no tech company sponsored the New Year Gala red packet campaign. In China itself, Alibaba (Taobao, Alipay), JD, Douyin and Kuaishou took the batons from Tencent and sponsored the subsequent years’ New Year Gala red packet campaigns, with billions of dollars of red packet money. We have discussed the challenges and lessons learnt in Seeing the unseen: behind Chinese tech giants’ global venturing. Neither has anyone tried successfully to replicate Wechat’s or Alipay’s wide coverage outside China. To date, Chinese entrepreneurs and companies expanding into other countries are still looking to replicate that success – without much success though. Wechat also stress-tested its system to be able to handle billions of transactions – an important step towards forming the Wechat-Alipay duopoly in consumer digital payments. Īs a successful massive user acquisition campaign where the cost is largely shouldered by third parties, Wechat’s red packets at New Year’s Gala became legendary. Over the next few days, as people were still sending red packets, the number of Wechat payment users exceeded 100 million. Adding that to the red packets consumers sent each other, 1.01 billion red packets were sent and received on New Year’s Eve night alone. In 2015, the sponsorship at CCTV New Year Gala pushed the user acquisition to spectacular levels – 20 million consumers participated, fighting for the RMB500 billion worth of red packets sent by Tencent partners and advertisers. Tencent already did one round of Wechat red packet promotions the previous lunar new year (214), which prompted 8 million consumers to start using Wechat payment by bundling their bank account ( necessary for KYC ) after that campaign – 40 million virtual red packets were sent on Wechat during the week long New Year holidays. The format, which is getting users to send and receive virtual red packets, aligned well with tradition as well as the festive joy people were expecting. Plus, you can push content directly through programmatic ads on the sections built-in WeChat, or sell within your store.In 2015, Tencent sponsored the (Lunar) New Year Gala by CCTV, China’s state-owned broadcaster, to promote the WeChat payment.

With EGGsist, you can start turning your brand into a WeChat superstar by building your unique identity on the app and get in touch with thousands of potential customers. You can’t miss the unique opportunity to connect with over one billion potential customers, build more interactive and personalized shopping experiences, that is eventually what Chinese consumers are eager for! Those are just some of the main functionalities offered by the app. Nowadays, WeChat plays a fundamental role in Chinese people’s daily life. Now, the Chinese version of the app shows the eastern Asian continent picture, taken by a Chinese satellite.

Here’s the last fun fact: since 2011, WeChat splash screen, called Blue Marble, is a photo of the planet earth shot during the Seventies, showing the African continent. Will it be the start of a new era for the “chatting” app? The Super APP gets more social vibes with the new Live Streaming feature.

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