420m WeChat users sent over 8 billion 'Red Envelopes' at Chinese New Year 2016

"The scale of social and messaging platforms in China is at its peak on Chinese New Year, as statistics on usage of platforms such as WeChat and Weibo reveal.
According to WeChat, owned by digital media business Tencent, 420 million people sent each other lucky money via the app’s payment service on the eve of Chinese New Year. According to WeChat, it has seen a total of 8.08 billion red envelopes sent so far for Chinese New Year, eight times more than last year.
To put this into context, according to PayPal it made 4.9 billion transactions in 2015 (half of the number of transactions made on WeChat just for Chinese New Year) and only 28 per cent were made on a mobile device."
Source:  The Drum, 9th February 2016
Also
Stats on Weibo usage

Weibo has 129 million active monthly users

"According to the IPO documents, Weibo pulled in revenues of $188.3 million in 2013. Like its U.S. counterpart Twitter, however, the company is still not turning a profit at the bottom line: Weibo recorded a $38.1 million net loss in 2013. The company had 2,043 employees as of December 2013.
“Since our inception four years ago, Weibo has amassed a large user base in China and in Chinese communities in more than 190 countries. In December 2013, Weibo had 129.1 million monthly active users, or MAUs, and 61.4 million average daily active users, or average DAUs, increasing from 96.7 million MAUs and 45.1 million average DAUs in December 2012, respectively, and 72.9 million MAUs and 25.2 million average DAUs in December 2011, respectively. A microcosm of Chinese society, Weibo has attracted a wide range of users, including ordinary people, celebrities and other public figures, as well as organizations such as media outlets, businesses, government agencies and charities.”"

Source:  Weibo's IPO document, reported by TechCrunch, 14th March 2014

Instant messaging is more popular than search in China

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Source:  CNNIC via Marbridge Daily, 15th January 2013

119m Olympics-related 'Tweets' were made on Sina Weibo during the 2012 opening ceremony

"While much has been made about this being the 'Twitter Olympics,' it should be noted that China has its own version called Sina Weibo (meaning "microblog" in Chinese) that is making a strong case to call this the "Weibo Olympics" as well.
While Twitter counted almost 10 million tweets during the Olympic opening ceremony, which was more than during the whole of the Beijing games, Sina Weibo counted 119 million opening ceremony tweets. What makes these numbers even more impressive is that Twitter has half the users of Twitter, but generated over 10 times the number of comments, writes Sam Flemming, Shanghai-based president and founder of social business intelligence provider CIC."

Source:  AdAge, 8th August 2012