Xu Wei

(Yicai Global) Jan. 30 — China has released global brands’ China influence index, including a list of most influential brands in the country for the first time, with Tencent Holdings Ltd., Apple Inc. [NASDAQ:AAPL] and Huawei Technologies Co. taking the top three spots.

Twelve of the top 30 most influential brands in China are domestic brands, according to a report released today by Tencent Big Data and Penguin Intelligence, a data and analytics firm under Tencent which focuses on the internet industry trends and cases. The report studies brands in wide-ranging areas, including mobile phones, technology and internet firms, premium vehicles, ordinary cars, real estate, banking, wealth management and catering.

The 12 Chinese firms in the top 30 most influential brands in the country are Tencent, Huawei, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Xiaomi Inc., Baidu Inc., Haidilao Hotpot, China Vanke Co., JD.Com Inc., China Evergrande Group, Country Garden Holdings Co., China Quanjude Group Co. and Poly Real Estate Group. Among them, there are six tech brands, as well as four real estate and two restaurant brands.

Brand Influence and Awareness

In China, Tencent has a brand influence index of 76.30, followed by Apple (75.69) and Huawei (74.33). As China’s most influential brand, Tencent has several products that boast hundreds of millions of users and scores high in terms of brand use, brand loyalty and brand recommendation, with indicators well above the average level in the industry, the report pointed out.

Apple scores high in terms of brand awareness, brand use and brand loyalty, and its brand plays a big role in prompting consumers to purchase its products, reflecting its exceptional ability to use its brand.

Huawei enjoys good brand awareness and customer base. It ranks number one in the mobile phone industry in terms of brand reputation among non-users, and has excellent ability to market its brand in the mass marketplace. Alibaba scores high in terms of brand use, but its score in public perception of the brand is lower than the industry average, the report added.

Chinese Brands Versus International Ones

Eight of the top 10 tech and internet brands are Chinese ones, and only two are foreign brands, namely Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, ranking sixth and ninth. However, neither of the two brands is among the top 30 global brands in China.

Overall, Chinese brands are most popular among 86.1 percent of consumers, followed by US brands (28.6 percent) and Japanese brands (19.6 percent).

Residents will be less willing to buy Chinese-branded products in first- and second-tier cities than those in third-tier cities, and a growing percentage of them will purchase fewer and fewer domestic-branded goods, the report showed.

Young people under the age of 25 differ substantially from people above 25 in terms of trust of brands of different countries and evaluation of the uniqueness of such brands. Young people under 25 believe that Chinese brands, US brands and South Korean brands are more trustworthy and unique, but do not value German brands as highly as those above 25 do.