Beijing, February 2, 2026, 21:21 (GMT+8)
- Alibaba plans 3 billion yuan ($431 million) in Qwen app incentives starting Feb. 6
- Tencent and Baidu have set aside 1 billion yuan and 500 million yuan for rival chatbot promotions
- The nine-day Spring Festival public holiday starts Feb. 15, stretching the window for user-growth campaigns
Alibaba said on Monday it will spend 3 billion yuan ($431 million) to lure users to its Qwen AI app during the Lunar New Year holiday, a sum that tops rival budgets announced by Tencent and Baidu. The incentives start on Feb. 6.
The move underlines how fast China’s AI contest is shifting from model bragging rights to a hard push for daily users. Companies are trying to make their chatbots the first stop for shopping, travel and payments as the country heads into its biggest annual break.
The public holiday begins on Feb. 15 and runs nine days, longer than in most years. Chinese tech firms have long treated the season as a marketing battleground; Tencent’s digital red-envelope push in 2015 helped WeChat Pay gain ground against Alibaba’s Alipay.
Alibaba said its handouts will cover dining, drinks, entertainment and leisure, with “large red envelopes distributed continuously” — hongbao, the cash gifts swapped during the festival. It did not say whether the rewards will be cash or coupons redeemable on platforms such as Taobao.
The Hangzhou-based company plans to run the campaign across its ecosystem, including shopping app Taobao, on-demand retail and food delivery service Shangou and travel unit Fliggy, along with Damai, Amap and grocery chain Freshippo. Incentives include lottery-style free orders and cash in red packets, and Alibaba said the drive is meant to “invite users to experience a new lifestyle in the AI era”. Scmp
Rivals are spending too. Tencent and Baidu have set aside 1 billion yuan and 500 million yuan for promotions tied to their AI chatbots. Tencent’s Yuanbao campaign began on Feb. 1, and users must update the app to withdraw red-envelope rewards to their WeChat wallets.
ByteDance, which owns Douyin and TikTok, has also moved early, securing what it described as an “exclusive AI cloud partnership” with China Central Television’s Spring Festival Gala, scheduled for Feb. 16. The show is mainland China’s most-watched television broadcast.
The scramble comes as China’s AI sector speeds up after DeepSeek’s R1 model last year shook up the market for large language models — the software behind chatbots. DeepSeek is expected to release a next-generation model, V4, in mid-February, The Information reported.
Alibaba has been pitching Qwen as more than a chatbot, tying it into shopping and payments so it can complete orders from a chat window. Wu Jia, a vice-president at Alibaba, said AI is “gaining the ability to act in the real world,” pointing to systems that take practical steps for users. Chinadailyhk
The big question is whether users stick around once the red envelopes dry up. Alibaba has not laid out how the 3 billion yuan will be paid out, and rivals can always raise the stakes.
