TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results'Lucky' Chinese phone number fetches $300,000 at online auction
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
The number ends in five eights, a sought-after combination in China as the word "eight" in Mandarin sounds similar to the word for "prosperity". (Shutterstock/DenPhotos)
A
"lucky" mobile phone number has sold for a whopping 2.25 million yuan ($300,000) after hundreds of people vied online for the right to use the apparently auspicious string of digits.
The number ends in five eights, a sought-after combination in China as the word "eight" in Mandarin sounds similar to the word for "prosperity".
The number was among assets seized and ordered auctioned by a court in Beijing, and an online sale attracted more than five thousand bids between Saturday and Sunday.
Phone users in China -- especially companies seeking to impress clients and business partners -- often pay a premium for combinations of digits considered lucky.
Read also: Christie's woos millennial buyers with new Michael Jordan-themed auction
Eight is the most sought after digit, and so prized in China that the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing started officially at eight minutes past eight on the eighth day of August, the eighth month.
The number four, which in Mandarin sounds similar to "death", is least favored.
The winner of Sunday's auction paid 400 yuan to join the action and has ten days to come up with the remaining sum.
A phone number ending in eight sevens holds the record on the auction platform for fetching 3.91 million yuan at a 2017 auction.
Seven sounds like "arise" or "life essence" and is considered a good number for relationships.
