Internet giants launch 'red envolop' campaigns
互联网巨头发放春节红包

Chinese New Year might still be a week away, but an online war of Red Envelopes, or cash gifts given out at traditional family gatherings are already well underway. Millions of smartphone users across the country scrambled to grab some luck as e-payment giants are spending billions to attract more users.

Clicking for lucky money.

A frenzy of games where you try to grab red envelops have become the rage among millions of smartphone users.

No one wants to miss a chance to win some money before the start of the Chinese New Year

I grabbed an envelop with 2 yuan in it, but I'm still happy about it. It's easy money earned by simple clicks.I wish I had more fingers.

Nearly 13 million yuan in cash prizes and 30 million yuan in coupons are given away through Alipay Wallet in a single morning. Alipay Wallet is a mobile payment app backed by tech giant Alibaba.

While some got lucky, others walked away empty-handed.

My collegues and I tried to get some lucky money, but none of us did.The money giveaway time was during office hours, so we had to put some work stuff aside.

The company apologized to users who failed to get anything, adding around 12 million more yuan in cash prizes in the game in the late afternoon.

However, Alibaba warned that due to the anticipated number of users, it would be very difficult to please everyone.

The tech giant plans to give away up to 600 million yuan in cash and coupons during the holiday season.

With the frenzy in the first day slowing dying down, the battle lines have already been drawn.

Other Internet companies including Tencent, Baidu have jumped on the bandwagon and launched their own hongbao campaigns.

They will either send out cash-filled red envelopes or online shopping coupons.

More than 7 billion yuan is estimated to be pumped into this year's campaign by Internet firms.

The red envelope campaign, which began during last Spring Festival with the widely used messaging app WeChat, has proved to be a huge success to lure new users.

With the red envelope battle going on, "Have you grabbed a red envelope?" may become China's newest catchphrase.