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Media

WeChat Messages Hit 46 Billion Over Chinese Holiday

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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WeChat Messages Hit 46 Billion Over Chinese Holiday

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[cnxvideo id=”510428″ placement=”ros”]WeChat, the Chinese instant messaging service, says 46 billion of its “electronic red envelopes” were sent over the Chinese New Year holiday. Each of these contains money sent as a gift.

WeChat, a mobile app, is part of Chinese internet company Tencent. It has a total 800 million users.

According to the Xinhua news agency:

WeChat, China’s major instant messaging app, said that some 46 billion electronic red envelopes (“hongbao” in Chinese) containing gift money were sent on WeChat from Jan. 27 to Feb. 1, 43 percent more than last year.

Chinese Lunar New Year fell on Jan. 28.

Geographically, people in Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong and Hebei provinces led the hongbao mania, while outside the Chinese mainland, the Republic of Korea topped the WeChat giving charts.

WeChat also said those born in the 1980s and 1990s sent and received the most hongbaos during the holiday and this year men gave more hongbao to men than to women.

[nativounit]
The app is available for download from both the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Android app stores. It is a free download.

The iTunes store’s description of WeChat:

 Over half a billion people use WeChat, the free messaging & calling app that allows you to easily connect with family & friends across countries. It’s the all-in-one communications app for free text (SMS/MMS), voice & video calls, moments, photo sharing, and games.

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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