Credit: VCG

The Year of the Dog has given way to the Year of the Pig. On February 10, WeChat published its official 2019 Chinese Lunar New Year statistics report, delivering an in-depth analysis of how Chinese celebrate the Lunar New Year that includes the exchanging of New Year's greetings as well as red packets containing monetary gifts, visits to relatives and other common holiday activities over the Chinese Lunar New Year. Furthermore, the report reveals in detail how traditional New Year customs have evolved with the development of mobile internet.

According to the WeChat Chinese Lunar New Year report, for the period from Chinese New Year's Eve through the fifth day of the new year, the volume of messaging on WeChat grew 64.2% compared to the same time last year.

823 million people sent and received WeChat red packets, a 7.12% increase on a year-on-year basis. On Chinese New Year's Eve, user activity reached its peak, including the volume of messaging on a single day and also the volume of posting on WeChat's Moments. Beijing ranked number one for the amount of money sent in red packets earning the title of 'Red Packet City of the Year'. Guangzhou and Chongqing ranked second and third respectively.

WeChat introduced many new types of red packets, including custom-tailored red packets, New Year red packets, emoji red packets and more. By the fifth day of the new year, nearly 250 million special red packets with tailored covers had been opened, including tailored red packets issued by 26,000 companies for their 20 million employees.

The top three enterprises whose red packets were opened the most were Agricultural Bank of China (4.2 million times), Huaxia Life Insurance and Tencent.

The post-'90s generation are becoming the driving force among mobile internet users and rank top in terms of volume of WeChat messaging, Moments posting, emoji and sticker use, and sending and receiving of WeChat red packets.

WeRun fitness tracker

The Chinese Lunar New Year is seen by many as the golden time for socializing with others, exercising and recuperating. In the period from New Year's Eve to the fifth day of the new year, WeRun users walked a total of 9.63 trillion steps, a 50% increase on a year-to-year basis. Calculated at an average of 0.5 meter per step, WeRun users have more than circumnavigated the earth during the New Year period.  

Many users chose to spend their leisure time during the Lunar New Year by reading books with using WeChat Reading. In the period from Chinese New Year's Eve to the fifth day of the new year, statistics shows users spent a total of 15.1 million hours reading on WeChat. Among these users, the post-'90s generation scored another top, namely top in reading time. Recent acclaim of the sci-fi movie The Wandering Earth propelled the popularity of the book of the same name, on which it is based, with Cixin Liu's The Wandering Earth emerging as the most popular book on WeChat Reading during the Chinese Lunar New Year.

WeChat mini games

Playing WeChat mini games have gradually become an essential entertainment activity over the Chinese Lunar New Year. Among them, leisure mini games such as Tiao Yi Tiao (translated roughly as Jumping) and Dancing Line, as well as card and board mini games such as Fighting against the Landlord were especially popular.

In addition, WeChat also released its report on the "migration population". WeChat defines "migration consumption" as consumption paid for using WePay by consumers not at their permanent residence during the Chinese Lunar New Year. Published data by WeChat shows that during this year's Chinese Lunar New Year, in total nationally, there were 1.24 billion "migration consumption" transactions. In cities below the third-tier, more than 30% of migration consumption was paid using WePay. In sixth-tier cities, the proportion reached 43%.

Travel from new first-tier cities (e.g. Hangzhou, Wuhan, Chongqing) to third- and fourth-tier cities made up the majority of the migration population's migration routes this New Year.

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This article was edited by Dido Pang. 

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