The Chinese social media app WeChat has revealed that it saw massive levels of usage over Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year took place on 16 February this year. It is traditional for people to send money, known as hongbao or red envelopes, to one another during the festive period. A record-breaking 768 million people used WeChat to send money to their loved ones this year, an increase of 10% compared to last year. This is equivalent to 78% of WeChat users and 55% of the total Chinese population. WeChat also revealed that a staggering 230 billion messages were sent on WeChat over the Chinese New Year period. Users also racked up 17.5 billion minutes of audio and video chats during that time.
