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The Chinese tradition of giving gifts of money in red envelopes at Lunar New Year has turned into big business for Web giants Alibaba and Tencent, which now both offer electronic "hong bao".
At the end of each lunar year, it is common in China to give children hong bao — some money in envelopes that are red, the colour of success. But now the old also take part in this activity.
It is now possible to exchange "red envelopes" with smart phone, which is popular in China and has caused a battle(战争) for thelucrativemarket between the two companies providing the service, Tencent and Alibaba.
"You don't have to pay the same cost or wait as long as you would for a traditional bank transfer(转账). It's more convenient, simple and fun," Wang Le, a 28-year-old Beijinger, told AFP. " With electronic red envelopes, you're not limited by your identity（身份） or the time of year. It's a new, fresh way of playing the game."
The idea was introduced in 2014 by WeChat, a mobile messaging system with over 400 million users and run by Tencent, China's largest Internet service system. It was successful at once.
This year, Alipay Wallet（阿里支付宝）, the payment system run by Alibaba, is ready to take on the competition. It is allowing its 190 million users to send digital gifts, especially on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo.
For the past few weeks a digital battle has been terrible, with Tencent banning （禁止）Alipay from sending red envelopes on WeChat, saying they were at a risk. Recently, WeChat also blocked(封锁) Alibaba's music app Xiami.
To attract the public's attention, the two companies have launched lotteries through which they award red envelopes to users in an online game.
It's easy to send and receive hong bao or take part in the lotteries: you simply need to register （登记）your bank details.
According to market research group iResearch, Alipay controls 82.6 percent of the Chinese mobile phone payment market, compared to 10 percent for Tencent's Tenpay.
