Tencent senior vice president Allen Zhang, also known as the “father” of China’s most popular social app WeChat, said that there’s now a feature to customise covers for WeChat red envelopes. Those are the digital version of the Chinese tradition of giving paper red envelops with cash as a blessing and a gift. Along with the WeChat red envelope, you would transfer some WeChat Pay currency to the recipient’s mobile wallet. It’s immensely popular in China to send gifts this way.
Previously all envelopes looked the same, so it might come as a real advantage for WeChat users who want to send something more special. However, the feature is limited to WeChat business accounts which were introduced last year. WeChat red envelopes, again seem to serve as Tencent’s candy, this time to onboard more business users amid its strategic shift towards B2B.
When WeChat red envelopes were introduced in January 2014, they were a huge success and helped convince users to sign up for WeChat Pay, which was then able to catch up with Alipay, the only dominant third-party payment platform at that time.
Editor: Nadine Freischlad
