Doug Young

Corporate China | Red envelope wars in China, Xiaomi eyes US

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A recent round of virtual "red envelope wars" was making waves in the microblogging realm in this final week before the Lunar New Year.

Doug Young

Published: 9:26am, 17 Feb 2015Updated: 4:37pm, 17 Mar 2015

A recent round of virtual "red envelope wars" was making waves in the microblogging realm in this final week before the Lunar New Year, in one of the many recent battles that have seen Internet titans Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) and Tencent (0700.HK) lock horns. This particular rivalry has gained wide attention in the Chinese headlines these last few weeks, though it's worth noting that many others are staging similar copycat promotions following the huge success of Tencent's original virtual hongbao promotion last year.

Meantime, the hyperactive Xiaomi moved offshore in its own bid to make sure it continues to garner attention, with a flurry of microblogging buzz related to its new move into the ultra competitive US market. Last but not least, several high-tech leaders extended their well wishes to Internet elder Lee Kai-fu, following his return to his Innovation Works high-tech incubator in Beijing more than a year after returning to his native Taiwan for treatment of cancer.

There's no major common theme to this week's microblogging round-up, other than the year-end feel to much of it. The virtual red envelope wars have been making headlines for the last couple of weeks, and center on the traditional practice of giving out cash-filled envelopes to young people during the Lunar New Year. Similarly, Xiaomi probably chose to announce its US initiative now because any such moves in China would have gone largely unnoticed in the pre-New Year rush.

Lee Kai-fu is also probably hoping his return to China will be equally low-key, following talk that his hasty departure in 2013 may have been partly linked to Beijing's growing displeasure about his outspoken views on Chinese politics. Such discussion has disappeared from Lee's microblog since then, though he has started to comment again on more high tech-related issues in the run-up to his return.

Let's begin our weekly microblogging round-up with the war over red envelopes, or hongbao, which splashed into the headlines two weeks ago when Tencent expelled an Alibaba promotion from its popular WeChat messaging service.