A Chinese boy holds a Red Packet,or Hongbao,a red envelope filled with money that are traditionally given out on special occasions, especially during Spring Festival on Feb 21, 2007 at Xinshao county, Hunan province. [Lv Jianshe / Asianewsphoto]

As Chinese New Year draws near, the festive atmosphere is being transformed by celebrating traditional customs in a new technical way

Chinese New Year Red Packets (Chinese Pinyin for Xinnian Hongbao), a newly launched feature on Tencent's messaging application WeChat that allows users to deliver Red Packets, has achieved sizable subscribers among WeChat users in China.

Red Packets (Chinese Pinyin for Hongbao) are red envelopes filled with money that are traditionally given out on special occasions, especially during Spring Festival. Distributing the packets is one of the top five Spring Festival customs in China.

Compared with the traditional physical Red Packets, WeChat provides a service that allows its users to post and receive Red Packets among their contacts via WeChat Payment. It has become an instant hit and possibly helped in driving more users to WeChat, according to Technode.com, the official partner of TechCrunch in China.

Rumours on social media claimed that WeChat Payment's user base rocketed to 100 million within days of the service's launch.

However, Wu Yi, a team member of Chinese New Year Red Packets, said the number was exaggerated, adding that he and his colleagues created the system to mark the Spring Festival and improve the experience of WeChat Payment users.

Moreover, Alipay, an online payment platform run by China's Internet giant Alibaba, is also marking the occasion in a different way. It has launched a mobile app service that resembles Red Packets, but on this users have to request for red envelopes from their contacts.

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