The Chinese ecommerce company Tencent is taking its 'red packets' initiative to the Indian market. Red packets are a Chinese phenomenon which has moved online in recent years, whereby envelopes are filled with money and given as gifts. In China, last year around 64 billion packets were gifted over Tencent's payment platform alone. The decision to move this tradition to the Indian market shows the company's international intentions. Packets will be blue in the country, and will be available during festivals such as Holi and Diwali on the Tencent-backed Hike chat platform. The market is becoming somewhat of a battleground for Chinese online giants, after Alibaba bought the Indian digital payments and ecommerce company Paytm early this year. However, Tencent has been warned by critics of its intentions to use 'blue packets' in India, and has been told that it should have looked to Indian culture for inspiration instead of copying a Chinese tradition.Â
