The other day I read a small announcement in Chinese financial news, which got me thinking about whether there is a trend of Chinese startups using English-based brands/domains.
The announcement was about a Beijing-based financial service provider called NewBanker. The startup was founded only in June, 2017 but has already received two rounds of investment totaling $10 million. Its brand consists of two English words and its corporate domain is the matching NewBanker.cn.
While this startup does have a Chinese name (牛投邦), I’ve found in some cases Chinese companies choose not to do so. Take VIPKid as an example. This fast-growing education startup helps Chinese children learn English directly online from teachers in the United States. It was founded in 2013 and is already valued at $3 billion. The corporate domain is VIPKid.com but you won’t find any Chinese name on the site. “VIPKid” is its brand in both Chinese and English. In other words, they are not worried about Chinese consumers not being able to remember an English brand.
Focusing on domains, my study of the 2018 Top 100 Chinese Internet Companies Report shows 36% uses English-based domains and most of them are .com. This observation is consistent with the EnglishDotCom domain strategy I’ve been advocating. My reasoning is that the internet is global by its nature. English is the global language and .com the global domain extension, so it’s obvious for startups all over the world to select an English-based .com as their corporate domain if they want to position themselves as a global player.
Therefore, if you aspire to become a global player, use the EnglishDotCom domain strategy. The good news is that you can do so at low cost. Just read my articles “A poor man’s guide to creating a global brand/domain” and ‘Sequel to a poor man’s guide to creating a global brand/domain” for some ideas.
To conclude, I don’t know yet if English-based domains are becoming a big trend, but I do see more and more Chinese companies going this way.
—–
Join me on LinkedIn for further discussion.
Braden Pollock says
April 11, 2019 at 12:19 pmI’ve seen increasingly more inquiries from China for my generic .com names. Just now, I responded to an inquiry from China for pineapple.com.
Ehren says
April 12, 2019 at 3:40 pmPineapple is a popular variant of poker in China.
Suresh Raghavan says
April 11, 2019 at 1:45 pmThis will be an interesting trend in China, if it truly takes off. It makes sense for companies that are interracting with the rest of the world and have customers worldwide – dealing with markets in US, UK and even India (which uses English primarily for corporate domain names) .
Jon Schultz says
April 11, 2019 at 3:21 pmGood article. Thanks!
Vito says
April 11, 2019 at 6:58 pmVery interesting article Kassey.
Nice to see what many of us domainers invest in, might be possibly taking off in China.
This is a surprising and incredibly cool fact you laid out here. ” they are not worried about Chinese consumers not being able to remember an English brand.”
So you say, “my study of the 2018 Top 100 Chinese Internet Companies Report shows 36% uses English-based domains and most of them are .com.”
I’m sure a majority of the Top 100 would be using dot cn, but can you break it down a little further…
What are any other tlds being used for those Top 100 Chinese Internet Companies?
Thanks
Paul McMenamy says
April 14, 2019 at 4:01 pmMe too Braden. I’ve had at least 10 enquiries this year on Names as diverse as Jiggery.com Expatico.com and 17March.com (St. Patrick’s Day).
I’ve also had some enquiries on .top Names.