Moving now to the lunar new year celebration. Chinese internet giants competed for consumers' attention as China rang in the year of the dog. Data released Friday by Tencent showed that 700 million WeChat users sent "Red Packets" on its digital payment platform on New Year's Eve. That was a 15 percent jump from the previous year.  

Data also showed that people born after 1980 were the most active users of the payment service, accounting for over one-third of the total user base. The Payment and Clearing Association of China said a record 100 million digital payments were handled on Thursday. Data from Alibaba and Baidu concerning their holiday payments was not immediately available. Analysts expect China's digital transactions to grow 36 percent by 2020, overtaking the US as the world's top cashless economy.