China's Internet companies are jockeying for position to find the best deals that can delight their smartphone-hooked customers and give their business the money it wants.
These companies have something very interesting up their sleeves: they are rolling out so-called "virtual red envelopes" part of Chinese culture of giving and receiving lucky money as present - during special holidays, like the Spring Festival which is celebrated ever 25th of January.
Yet experts said they had quite similar techniques to attract new fans or improve user engagement, reflecting the heavy traffic in China's mobile Internet sector that could affect the growth of revenue over time.
While Tencent Holdings Ltd's WeChat popularized the practice of digital red packets in 2014; this year it is its rising sister-product Weishi - Tencent's short video app - that made quite an impression.
The company on Wednesday announced that it would allocate around 1 billion yuan ($145 million) to subsidize users who download the app and do a variety of tasks.
Customers are encouraged to send virtual red packets containing as little as 0.01 yuan from January 17 to February 8, as they exchange short video clips with those who use the same app. The business then subsidizes every red packet that could hit as much as 888 yuan.
Part of the cash incentives comes from performing tasks such as viewing and curating videos, collecting electronic cards and inviting friends to download the app, to name a few.
Douyin, a rival app which expects to have 400 million active daily users this month, is set to generate 2 billion yuan from downloads. Participants need to engage in a number of competitive games to get a share of the earnings and sign up for lucky draws at specified times.
Meanwhile, Douyin and TikTok were the second most-downloaded app across Google Play and Apple's App Store last year, based on a report from analytics agency, Sensor Tower.
According to UBS Securities strategist Liu Yuan, the competitive pace is associated with the rising appeal of short video platforms, which in the next two years is seen to have the biggest growth capability across all media platforms.
Liu noted that one clear pattern internet companies are finding themselves in is to promote and encourage the production of high-quality digital content, particularly those that enhance people's interactions with others.
What also sets this year's experience apart from previous years is the increased collaboration between different business clusters. For example, Douyin's fanbase stand to divide among cash worth 500 million yuan if they manage to collect virtual cards that contain logos from all six brands under Bytedance, including news outlet Toutiao and photo processing app, FaceU.
