今年春節(jié)近8億人收發(fā)微信紅包

Nearly 800m people went online to send money to friends and relatives over the Chinese New Year festival as technology continues to permeate even the most ancient of traditions in China.

在春節(jié)期間，有近8億中國人在網(wǎng)上給親朋好友發(fā)紅包。科技繼續(xù)向甚至是中國最古老的傳統(tǒng)中滲透。

Tencent, one of China’s duo of tech titans, said 768m people sent and received hongbao, over Weixin Pay, its third party payments business, during the six day holiday period. Typically people will hand out scores or even hundreds of honbgbao: according to Tencent, one man sent 2,723 while another received 3,429.

中國兩大科技巨頭之一騰訊(Tencent)表示，從除夕零點(diǎn)至初六零點(diǎn)的6天里，有7.68億人通過其旗下第三方支付公司微信支付(Weixin Pay)發(fā)送和接收紅包。人們通常會(huì)發(fā)幾十個(gè)甚至幾百個(gè)紅包：根據(jù)騰訊的說法，有一人發(fā)出了2723個(gè)紅包，而另一人則收到了3429個(gè)紅包。

The mass migration to digital hongbao – initiated four years ago by Tencent – highlights the explosion of making payments with the swipe of a phone in China, where even beggars accept alms by proffering a QR code to passers-by. The market was estimated to be worth $15.5trn last year, utterly dwarfing those in the US and other countries.

數(shù)字紅包是四年前由騰訊首創(chuàng)的。朝著數(shù)字紅包的大規(guī)模遷移，凸顯出中國人手機(jī)支付規(guī)模的爆炸式增長。在中國，就連乞丐都會(huì)通過向路人展示二維碼來接受施舍。據(jù)估計(jì)，去年該市場的價(jià)值達(dá)15.5萬億美元，完全令美國和其他國家相形見絀。

Part of the market’s growth is due to poor legacy banking – China has mostly leap-frogged credit cards, for example – but has also been fuelled by innovations like moving hongbao on line. Tencent is seeking to export the custom to other markets, including India where a customised version is available on Hike, the messaging app it backs.

該市場增長的部分原因在于傳統(tǒng)銀行業(yè)務(wù)狀況不佳——例如，中國已基本上超越了信用卡階段——但也受到了把紅包移到線上等創(chuàng)新的推動(dòng)。騰訊正尋求將這一習(xí)慣輸出到印度等其他市場。在印度，騰訊投資的通訊應(yīng)用Hike可以提供定制版的紅包。

However, the habit is unlikely to reach the same dizzying heights as those achieved in China: in 2016 64bn packets changed hands over Tencent’s payments platforms.

然而，這一習(xí)慣不太可能達(dá)到中國當(dāng)年所達(dá)到的那種令人眼花繚亂的高度：2016年，在騰訊支付平臺(tái)上發(fā)送的紅包金額達(dá)到了640億美元。

Rival Alibaba has also got into the act. This year Ant Financial, its payments affiliate, said over 250 million users collected all the “five fortune cards” in its New Year’s eve promotion.

競爭對(duì)手阿里巴巴(Alibaba)也參與了這一行動(dòng)。今年，阿里巴巴的支付業(yè)務(wù)關(guān)聯(lián)公司螞蟻金服(Ant Financial)表示，在春節(jié)前夕的推廣活動(dòng)中，超過2.5億用戶集齊了所有的“五?？?rdquo;。

But it was not just money doing the rounds on WeChat, which has almost 1bn users, over the holiday period.

不過，在春節(jié)假期里，在用戶近10億的微信上轉(zhuǎn)來轉(zhuǎn)去的并不只是金錢。

Users sent 230bn messages – suggesting at least some people were spending rather more time on their phones than engaging in family conversation – and shared nearly 3bn posts. At the peak 28m people were playing WeChat mini games at the same time.

微信用戶發(fā)送了2300億條信息——這表明，至少有些人使用手機(jī)的時(shí)間超過了跟家人聊天的時(shí)間——并分享了近30億條內(nèi)容。在高峰時(shí)，有2800萬用戶同時(shí)在玩微信小游戲。