“Lucky” Phone Number Ending with ‘88888’ Sells for RM1.36mil Because of Its Prosperity

By Ameera Rosli  •  17 Aug 2020 in News

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Superstitions can lead people to do many things. Recently, a Chinese phone number that ends with ‘88888’ has been auctioned off at 2.25 million yuan (RM1.36 million). The number is auspicious since in Mandarin, the number ‘8’ sounds similar to the word prosperity.

During the weekend, over 5,000 bids were placed in Beijing to seize the right for that particular phone number. In China, phone users in China as well as telecommunications companies pay a premium price in order to save numbers that are deemed auspicious within their culture.

To illustrate just how highly sought after the number ‘8’ is, in 2008’s Beijing Olympics, the ceremony started eight minutes past eight on the eighth day of August, the eighth month. How’s that for auspicious?

The winner for the ‘88888’ phone number now has 10 days to pay the remaining sum after paying 400 yuan (RM241) to enter the auction.

The opposite for the number 8 is the number 4 since it sounds like ‘death’ in Mandarin. This is why certain buildings in China as well as Malaysia do not have the level 4 option, but instead change it to level 3A.