Over 210 mln Chinese walk for health during Tencent holiday campaign

About one seventh of the Chinese population participated in tech giant Tencent's campaign to encourage walking during the Spring Festival holiday, according to the company.

Citizens attend walking activities in Zhengzhou city, Henan Province on January 8, 2017. [File Photo: VCG]

More than 210 million Chinese received a total of 1.79 billion "red envelopes" with digital money during the Fitness Red Packet Campaign initiated by QQ, Tencent's leading social media platform.

Through QQ Sport's fitness tracking feature, the company offered its users a chance to enter a drawing for 200 million yuan (31.53 million U.S. dollars) in cash and shopping coupons worth 4 billion yuan for every 100 steps taken during the first three days of the Chinese New Year. The initiative aimed to promote healthy lifestyles during the holiday.

During the campaign, users walked an average of 5,347 steps per person every day. Participants born after 1990 recorded the highest daily average of 5,443 steps, while about 70 percent of the lucky winners were in their 20s.

Users from the cities of Chongqing, Chengdu and Kunming logged the most steps per capita on average, according to the company.

In total, participants walked 3.4 trillion steps during the first three days of the Chinese New Year, an increase of 35.9 billion steps from the same period last year.