Millions of Chinese people shook their smartphones on Wednesday night, the eve of the Spring Festival, to compete for digital "red envelopes" containing holiday prize money.

People began shaking their phones during China Central Television (CCTV)'s daytime holiday programming and Chunwan, a televised gala watched annually by hundreds of millions of people. This year, viewers nationwide were instructed to shake their phones at various times during the program for a chance to win randomized prizes.

According to official statistics from Tencent's Wechat which teamed up with CCTV, a peak high of 7.2 billion phone shakes was recorded at 22:30 as people competed for 120 million prizes.

Giving out red envelopes containing lucky money is a traditional custom during the Chinese Spring Festival, also known as Chinese New Year.

This year's digital "lucky money" was provided by advertisers hoping to promote their brands during the nationwide celebration. Winning clicks rendered coupons and money worth anywhere between a few cents and hundreds of yuan.

"It's a kind of entertainment. The experience of competing for lucky money is fun," said Mr. Li, an east China resident.

"I didn't care how much I got, just that I could win one envelope," said Mr. Weng, another resident of east China whose winnings could only be measures in cents.

Besides the Chunwan shakes, smartphone users were also able to compete for digital red envelopes by following the blogs of their favorite celebrities getting the first click in group chats with family members.

This year saw many Internet companies offering virtual red envelopes via their smartphone apps to attract more users.

Alipay, China's leading third-party online payment app, announced on Feb. 11 that it would be giving away 600 million yuan (about 97 million U.S. dollars) in lucky money via an in-app minigame. China's top internet search firm Baidu teamed up with JD.com to offer prize funds totaling 3.7 billion yuan (about 600 million U.S. dollars). Meanwhile, China's Twitter equivalent Sina Weibo invited more than 40 businesses and 400 celebrities to participate in the giveaways.

Some experts say that rather than trying to do something fun for their customers, these companies are actually spending away to convince more people to use their mobile payment services.