Alibaba's Qwen App Surges to 73.5M Daily Users During Lunar New Year, Driven by AI-Powered Transactions

Alibaba's AI assistant app Qwen has achieved remarkable growth during the Lunar New Year holiday period, reaching 73.52 million daily active users (DAU) as of February 7, according to data from QuestMobile. This surge places Qwen within striking distance of the current industry leader at 78.71 million DAU, while significantly widening the gap with third-place competitors by approximately fourfold.

During this same period, Qwen dominated Apple's China App Store free app chart for six consecutive days, outperforming major platforms such as Douyin and WeChat. The app's explosive growth coincided with a strategic promotional campaign that appears to have successfully converted casual users into active participants in Alibaba's AI ecosystem.

The "432 Million USD Free Order Campaign" Drives AI Adoption

The centerpiece of Qwen's Lunar New Year strategy was the "432 Million USD Lunar New Year Free Order Campaign," launched on February 6. This comprehensive promotion covered multiple verticals including food delivery, groceries, travel bookings, and e-commerce transactions. The campaign's scale and scope appear to have been instrumental in driving user engagement and demonstrating practical AI applications.

Within just nine hours of launch, AI-powered orders placed through the Qwen app exceeded 10 million, indicating strong initial user adoption. Between February 6 and February 12, users issued the command "Qwen, help me" an astonishing 4.1 billion times, resulting in more than 120 million completed AI transactions during the six-day period.

What makes these numbers particularly noteworthy is the geographic and demographic distribution of the transactions. Nearly half of all orders originated from users in county-level and lower-tier markets, suggesting that Qwen's AI assistant is successfully penetrating beyond major urban centers. Additionally, 1.56 million users aged over 60 completed their first-ever AI-powered food delivery orders during the campaign, demonstrating the platform's ability to onboard older demographics who may have been previously hesitant to adopt AI-driven services.

Technical Advancements: Qwen-Image-2.0 and Qwen3.5 Speculation

Alongside the user growth metrics, Alibaba's Tongyi Lab released Qwen-Image-2.0, an advanced image generation and editing model. This new model supports ultra-long text input of up to 1,000 tokens (approximately 750 Chinese characters) and can generate 2K-resolution images with advanced Chinese character rendering capabilities. The emphasis on Chinese character support is particularly significant given the complexities of Chinese typography and the importance of accurate rendering for practical applications in Chinese-speaking markets.

Adding to the technical momentum, a code merge request for Qwen3.5 appeared on Hugging Face's Transformers repository on February 9. This development has fueled speculation about an imminent next-generation foundation model that could potentially include native vision capabilities, building on the recent Qwen-Image-2.0 release. The timing suggests that Alibaba is maintaining a rapid development cycle for its AI models, potentially positioning itself to compete more aggressively with other major foundation model providers.

Building an Integrated AI Ecosystem

The Qwen growth story is part of a broader strategy by Alibaba to create a fully integrated AI ecosystem. The company's chip subsidiary, T-Head, unveiled its high-end AI chip "Zhenwu 810E" on January 29, marking the formal debut of Alibaba's in-house PPU (Processing and Peripherals Unit) architecture. This vertical integration strategy—combining model development through Tongyi Lab, cloud infrastructure via Alibaba Cloud, and custom silicon through T-Head—represents a comprehensive approach to AI development that mirrors strategies employed by other major tech companies.

Industry insiders describe this combination as creating an "end-to-end AI ecosystem," where each component reinforces the others. The custom chip can be optimized for the company's models, the models can be tailored to leverage the chip's capabilities, and the cloud infrastructure can be designed to support both efficiently. This integration potentially provides Alibaba with competitive advantages in terms of performance, cost efficiency, and control over the entire technology stack.

Market Implications and Competitive Positioning

Qwen's rapid growth during the Lunar New Year period represents a significant milestone in Alibaba's AI strategy. The ability to attract 73.5 million daily active users in a competitive market dominated by established players like Douyin and WeChat demonstrates the appeal of AI-powered assistance when combined with practical incentives and user-friendly interfaces.

The success in lower-tier markets and with older demographics suggests that Qwen may be filling a unique niche in the AI assistant landscape. While many AI applications have initially focused on tech-savvy urban users, Qwen's broader appeal indicates potential for more inclusive AI adoption across different segments of the Chinese population.

The 120 million AI-powered transactions in just six days also provide concrete evidence of AI's practical utility beyond novelty applications. When users can accomplish real tasks—ordering food, booking travel, making purchases—through natural language commands, it validates the vision of AI as an everyday utility rather than just a technological showcase.

As Alibaba continues to develop its integrated AI ecosystem with new models, custom chips, and cloud infrastructure, the company appears positioned to leverage its e-commerce and digital payment strengths to create compelling AI applications. The Qwen app's growth trajectory suggests that combining practical utility with strategic promotions can drive rapid user adoption, even in a crowded and competitive market.

The convergence of user growth, technical advancement, and ecosystem integration points to Alibaba's ambition to be a major player in the global AI landscape, with particular strength in the Chinese market where it can leverage its existing digital infrastructure and user base.