Alibaba Winning Red Envelope War; Lucky Money Campaign Draws More Than $650 Million

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s (NYSE: BABA) e-payment system, Alipay, informs that more than 100 million people sent gift money via mobile apps during the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday. In the context of Alibaba’s Lucky Money campaign, Alipay processed more than 4 billion yuan ($652 million) of gift money.

But why are people giving out money?

The popular Lucky Money campaign rethinks a millenary Chinese tradition, “hongbao.” According to this custom, on Lunar New Year’s Eve, grownups give children red envelopes filled with money. However, in this case, most of the people sending money via Alipay were in their 20s, and resided in the cities of Shanghai, Hangzhou, Beijing and Guangzhou, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Other Chinese companies (Tencent Holdings, Baidu and Sina Corporation) also tried to get a piece of the “red envelopes” cake, and offered a similar feature.