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Tencent
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Tencent is paying users to try its new classic TV streaming app in effort to quickly grow elderly, rural user base

  • Pianduoduo features ad-free on-demand streaming of popular classic Chinese TV shows
  • China’s lower-tier and remote rural areas have become major targets for Big Tech looking for new areas of growth

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Visitors gather at a display booth for Chinese technology firm Tencent at the China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) in Beijing in 2020. Photo: AP
Iris Dengin Hong KongandCelia Chenin Shenzhen
Tencent Holdings, China’s gaming, social media, and entertainment king, has launched a new video platform that rewards users for watching videos, in a move to expand its presence among China’s vast elderly and rural populations.
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Pianduoduo, which literally means “lots of videos” in Chinese, was recently launched across application stores in China. A check on Wednesday showed that the app has been download over 20,000 times on Huawei’s app store.

Offering entire seasons of popular classic TV series ad-free, including mythical action-adventure Journey to West, imperial court drama My Fair Princess, and historical spy thriller Sparrow, Pianduoduo gives users digital coins in exchange for watching.

Capped at 3,600 coins per day, for a total monetary value of 0.2 yuan, users can earn 60 coins for every minute they watch. The app, with a very simple design and layout, does not explicitly state the cap until the user reaches the maximum earnings for the day.

Tencent did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

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“If [users] can get paid for watching something they‘d probably watch anyway, it will have widespread appeal,” said Mark Tanner, managing director of Shanghai-based consultancy China Skinny. “But if it isn‘t [sticky], the viewers will leave the minute the cash stops.”

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