Red packet rumble: will Tencent’s cash giveaway work again in crowded AI market?

South China Morning PostCenter-RightEN 2 min read 100% complete by Iris DengFebruary 2, 2026 at 03:00 PM

AI Summary

short article 2 min

Tencent is launching a 1 billion yuan promotional campaign using digital red packets to boost adoption of its new AI app, Yuanbao, aiming to replicate WeChat Pay's success in 2015. The campaign began Sunday, flooding WeChat groups with referral links and briefly pushing Yuanbao to the top of Apple's iOS free app chart. However, Alibaba's Qwen AI app quickly countered with a 3 billion yuan campaign offering incentives across its platforms. Analysts are skeptical if these cash incentives will be enough to succeed in the increasingly competitive AI market in China. Yuanbao experienced a temporary service outage on Sunday evening due to high traffic, but service resumed on Monday.

Key Entities & Roles

Key Player Opposition Context

South China Morning Post 35% Shangou 40% Fliggy 40% Ant Group 50% Taobao 50% Alipay 55% WeChat ×260% Qwen 65% WeChat Pay 70% Alibaba Group Holding ×275% Yuanbao ×585% Tencent Holdings ×390%

Keywords

yuanbao 90% artificial intelligence 90% cash giveaway 80% market competition 70% digital red packets 70% user adoption 60% wechat pay 60% promotional campaign 50% mobile payments 50% alibaba 50%

Sentiment Analysis

Neutral

Score: -0.10

Source Transparency

Source

South China Morning Post

Political Lean

Center-Right (0.50)

Far LeftCenterFar Right

Classification Confidence

90%

This article was automatically classified using rule-based analysis. The political bias score ranges from -1 (far left) to +1 (far right).

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yuanbao artificial intelligence cash giveaway market competition digital red packets user adoption wechat pay promotional campaign mobile payments alibaba

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