China's super app WeChat , owned by Tencent Holdings, has added a gift-giving feature to its embedded e-commerce platform ahead of Christmas, allowing users to send presents to their friends.

Shoppers can search for products by keywords. According to the official guidelines, all gifts available are priced 10,000 yuan (US$1,375) or under, and they exclude jewellery and tutoring classes. After the sender completes payment, the recipient must accept the gift and submit a postal address within 24 hours or the order will be cancelled, and the money returned to the sender.

Users can only send a single gift to one WeChat friend per order.

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The new feature, which was quietly rolled out this week to a select group of users, has sparked discussion about its potential as Tencent's latest weapon in China's hotly contested e-commerce market. With 1.2 billion users, WeChat - known as Weixin locally - has a ubiquitous presence among the country's internet users.

Tencent's penguin mascots at the company's Hong Kong office. Photo: Yik Yeung-man alt=Tencent's penguin mascots at the company's Hong Kong office. Photo: Yik Yeung-man>

While Tencent still trails Alibaba Group Holding , PDD Holdings and JD.com in the e-commerce arena, the social media and video gaming giant has stepped up efforts to boost its online shopping business.

In August, WeChat renamed its e-commerce platform as WeChat Shop and upgraded its customer service support. In its latest quarterly earnings report, Tencent said the update was aimed at creating a standardised and trustworthy e-commerce platform.

Gross merchandise value, a metric for e-commerce sales, in WeChat mini programs reached 2 trillion yuan in the third quarter with year-on-year growth in the "high teens", according to the company.

Tencent's stock rose 2.7 per cent to close at HK$426.4 on Friday. Shares of Weimob, a major third-party software provider that serves e-commerce merchants operating on WeChat, jumped more than 25 per cent on Friday after rallying 36 per cent the day before.

For now, the gift selection on WeChat remains limited. Some high-end cosmetics brands, for example, are missing. Still, some sellers expressed optimism about the gifting feature.

Xue Yuchen, a merchant selling cultural and creative products on WeChat Shop, said he had been testing the function. He expected it to boost sales ahead of the Christmas and Lunar New Year shopping season.