Latest news and articles about WeChat
Total: 22 articles found
From Watches to Robots: How China’s Spring Festival Gala Became a Four‑Decade Mirror of Economic Change
China’s Spring Festival Gala has tracked the nation’s economic evolution for more than forty years. What began as barter deals for watches has evolved into multi‑hundred‑million yuan interactive partnerships and showcases of AI and robotics, making the Gala a concise barometer of consumer trends, corporate strategy and industrial policy.
WeChat Goes Gold for Lunar New Year: AI Songs, Golden Moments and Red‑Envelope Gamification
Tencent has introduced a suite of WeChat features for the Lunar New Year—golden Moments that can drop red envelopes when liked, AI‑generated New Year songs, and customizable red‑packet covers. The updates are designed to boost engagement, encourage payments, and create shareable seasonal content, while raising questions about data use and regulatory attention.
Tencent Turns WeChat ‘Golden Moments’ into a Spring‑Festival Traffic Play — Yuanbao Adds Extra 10k Red‑Packet Prizes
Tencent has enabled a gold‑coloured New Year Moments effect in WeChat that activates when users publish a Yuanbao‑made greeting, and Yuanbao has added extra high‑value red packets as part of a RMB 10 billion Spring Festival campaign. The move highlights an escalating competition among Chinese tech firms to lock users into AI and payments ecosystems through festive incentives, while also exposing how WeChat’s sharing restrictions serve as a gatekeeper for third‑party promotions.
China’s Tech Giants Wage an AI-Powered Red-Envelope War to Win Spring Festival Attention
During the Lunar New Year, Tencent, ByteDance and other Chinese tech firms launched a wave of AI‑branded giveaways and UI changes to drive engagement. From gold‑coloured WeChat Moments and ten‑thousand‑yuan vouchers to hourly red‑packet rains and gala‑tie‑in prizes, companies are using festive incentives to rebuild user habits and showcase AI features.
Free Milk Tea and Crashed Servers: China’s AI Giants Spend Billions to Buy Users — But Will They Keep Them?
China’s largest tech firms turned the Lunar New Year into a costly marketing contest, using red packets and free-order campaigns to drive downloads for their AI assistants. The promotions produced massive short-term engagement but exposed operational and product weaknesses, and highlighted that long-term success will hinge on embedding AI into daily services rather than on discount-driven spikes.
Tencent’s Yuanbao Restores Red‑Packet Sharing to WeChat as App Update Reopens Copying of Codes
Tencent updated its Yuanbao app on February 7 to allow sharing red‑packet links into Yuanbao Pai and restored WeChat’s ability to copy Yuanbao red‑packet passcodes after a brief period when such codes were non‑copyable. The move reverses a constraint introduced on February 6 that had curbed how third‑party services distribute viral red‑packet promotions through WeChat.
WeChat Clips Tencent’s Yuanbao in China’s AI ‘Red‑Envelope’ War — A Lesson in Platform Governance
WeChat has blocked in‑chat links from Tencent’s AI app Yuanbao for using share mechanics that the platform said induced excessive forwarding and harmed user experience, forcing Yuanbao to change its sharing approach. The enforcement, which also affected Baidu and Alibaba apps, underscores how platform governance and ecosystem fit now matter as much as model performance or marketing spend in China’s heated AI ‘red‑envelope’ competition.
Copyable Codes, 1‑Cent Milk Tea and a Grey Market: How AI ‘Red‑Envelope’ Promotions Are Testing China’s Platforms
WeChat briefly allowed users to copy AI app red‑envelope codes on Feb. 7, reigniting viral sharing of digital coupons after Tencent had blocked direct links. Alibaba‑backed Qianwen’s 1‑cent milk‑tea promotion sparked intense demand and a small secondary market selling redemptions, prompting the company to warn that its virtual benefits are non‑transferable and may be revoked if resold.
WeChat Blocks Alibaba’s Qianwen New‑Year Giveaway — Platform Power Meets Growth Hacking
WeChat quickly blocked sharing links for Alibaba’s Qianwen app after the latter launched a large Spring Festival referral promotion, following a recent similar ban on Yuanbao red‑envelope links. The move underscores how dominant platforms police virality to protect user experience and manage competitive optics, forcing marketers to rethink referral‑based growth.
WeChat Cuts Off Ma Huateng’s Viral Push: Yuanbao’s Red‑Envelope Stunt Blocked for Disrupting Chats
WeChat has blocked Yuanbao’s direct red‑envelope links after users complained about aggressive, task‑based sharing that flooded chats and groups. Yuanbao quickly pivoted to a password‑based sharing model, but the move raised questions about internal alignment at Tencent and the limits of viral acquisition inside dominant platforms.
WeChat Blocks Tencent’s Yuanbao Red‑Envelope Push, Underscoring Platform First Rule
WeChat has restricted direct opening of links from Tencent’s Yuanbao app, after the app’s New Year ‘red‑envelope’ campaign spread via high‑frequency share tasks and drew user complaints. The move exposed a strategic rift within Tencent between a product philosophy that defends user experience and a group push to drive rapid user acquisition through viral mechanics.
From Wedding Rules to Winter Sports: How Beijing’s Year‑start Directives, Consumer Frenzy and Platform Policing Are Shaping China’s Early‑2026 Economy
Beijing’s latest No.1 document renewed efforts to rein in excessive rural bride prices and for the first time called for cross‑provincial coordination, even as state media celebrated mass participation in winter sports and officials moved to revive cross‑strait tourism. Markets were volatile: gold jewellery prices surged, bitcoin hit a 15‑month low amid AI‑related software fears, and regulators forced WeChat to block widely shared promotional links that were disrupting user experience.