Chinese tech giants launch multi-billion yuan Spring Festival campaigns

Chinese tech giants are investing billions of Chinese RMB (yuan) to attract users through their AI platforms during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday, collectively creating a significant incentive for festive consumption.

The Spring Festival, or the traditional Chinese New Year, falls on Feb. 17 this year, with the official holiday period lasting for nine days.

Alibaba's Qianwen AI assistant has launched a three-billion-yuan campaign, granting users complimentary access to dining, travel, and entertainment services within its ecosystem.

The initiative follows Tencent's Yuanbao AI, which distributed 1 billion yuan in digital red envelopes, briefly topping app store rankings and placing significant strain on its servers.

Baidu's "Wenxin" AI has also entered the competition, launching its own digital red envelope campaign backed by a 500 million yuan fund.

Chinese tech giants launch multi-billion yuan Spring Festival campaigns

China made public a work plan on Friday to further upgrade service consumption infrastructures and support housekeeping, elderly care and childcare sectors.

The document, jointly released by the Ministry of Commerce and eight other departments, outlined 64 measures to boost service consumption, including traditional sectors like catering and accommodation, tourism, as well as elderly care and childcare.

Emerging growth sectors, such as housekeeping, performance services and inbound consumption, are also covered.

These measures will create new consumption scenarios amid efforts to drive service consumption and meet people's growing needs for a better life, according to the ministry.

China unveils plan to further boost service consumption