Vouchers, red packets and sponsorships drove a surge in AI users over Chinese New Year, but now the tech giants face a retention test
2-MIN READ2-MINMia Nurmamatin Hong KongandBen Jiangin BeijingPublished: 9:00pm, 3 Mar 2026In an unprecedented Chinese New Year marketing blitz, Alibaba Group Holding, Baidu, ByteDance and Tencent Holdings spent an estimated 8 billion yuan (US$1.1 billion) to turn their artificial intelligence assistants into household names, according to Morgan Stanley.
A week after the holiday ended, early data offers a first glimpse into how China’s AI landscape is evolving and which players gained lasting traction from the spending spree.
Morgan Stanley said all platforms experienced “traffic normalisation” once the promotions ended, although the extent of the pullback varied.
Alibaba publicly disclosed a 3 billion yuan headline budget, but Morgan Stanley estimated in a research note on Monday that actual spending may have exceeded 5 billion yuan. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
