A Tencent employee poses with five red envelops in hand in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on February 26, 2015. [Photo/IC]

Statistics from WeChat, which is owned by Internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, showed that 3.27 billion red envelopes were sent and received by WeChat users between Feb 18 and Feb 23 with 1.01 billion of them being exchanged online within 24 hours on Feb 18.