Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) said on Monday that it will allocate 3 billion yuan ($431 million) to promote its Qwen artificial intelligence app during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, sharply intensifying competition among China’s largest technology groups.
The promotional campaign is set to kick off on February 6. Alibaba said the initiative will feature a wide range of consumer incentives tied to dining, beverages, entertainment and leisure, and will include what it described as “large red envelopes distributed continuously” throughout the holiday period.
The move comes shortly after rival announcements from Tencent and Baidu late last month. Those companies said they would spend 1 billion yuan and 500 million yuan, respectively, on marketing campaigns aimed at boosting usage of their own AI chatbot offerings during the Lunar New Year.
China’s tech companies have long treated the Lunar New Year as a prime window for user acquisition, as hundreds of millions of people travel, socialize and spend more time online. One of the most prominent examples dates back to 2015, when Tencent leveraged its WeChat messaging platform to distribute digital red envelopes, a strategy that helped WeChat Pay gain ground against the then-dominant Alipay.
This year’s Lunar New Year public holiday begins on February 15 and will run for nine days, making it longer than in most previous years and providing an extended opportunity for platforms to attract and retain new users.