While researching to write the post on Line.com, I read about the World Brand Summit held in Beijing last month. During the conference, a list of the 500 most valuable Chinese brands was released to the news. Naturally, my attention was drawn to the domain names these brands use.
So, I used Baidu to find out the domain names of the best ten Chinese brands. I also checked their establishment dates to see if that would affect their domain awareness. Here is what I’ve found.
| Rank | Brand | Founded | Domain Name |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | State Grid (国家电网) | 2002 | SGCC.cn | – |
| 2 | Tencent (腾讯) | 1998 | Tencent.cn | Tencent.com |
| 3 | ICBC (工商银行) | 1984 | ICBC.com.cn | – |
| 4 | China Life (中国人寿) | 2003 | ChinaLife.cn | – |
| 5 | Haier (海尔) | 1984 | Haier.cn | Haier.com |
| 6 | Huawei (华为) | 1987 | Huawei.cn | Huawei.com |
| 7 | Sinochem (中化) | 1950 | – | Sinochem.com |
| 8 | CCTV (CCTV) | 1958 | CCTV.cn | CCTV.com |
| 9 | FAW (中国一汽) | 1953 | FAW.cn | FAW.com |
| 10 | China Mobile (中国移动) | 1997 | ChinaMobile.cn | ChinaMobile.com |
First, the establishment date of a brand does not seem to affect the company’s domain awareness. For example, CCTV was founded in 1958 but still has secured its matching names on both .cn and .com. Overall, most of these ten brands own both. I was curious about whether these brands are interested in using other extensions. So, I entered each of the brands in Chinese into Baidu and checked the first 50 search results. I found only two brands using additional extensions: China Life with .hk and Haier with .net.
Therefore, we can see that .cn and .com are the only two mainstream extensions in China and no other extensions are near. Also, the three internet companies in the brands — Tencent, Huawei, and China Mobile — are all aware of the importance of domain names and have all acquired their matching names on both .cn and .com.
Unfortunately, the best brand in China does not own their name on .com. SGCC.com belongs to inspection service provider Tiama. The good news is, SGCC may be able to acquire SGCC.com because Tiama is operating on Tiama.com. The brand on this list that is least aware of the importance of domain name is ICBC: they don’t ICBC.cn and ICBC.com.
In conclusion, top brands in China prefer .cn and .com, so if you are targeting end user companies in China, stick to these two extensions.
very interesting. .com is recognized as the world leader. When you are operating in America there is not other valid tld. It also shows that LLLLL.com could become valuable if it matches a future Chinese company.
Hi Henry, yes 5L .com can be used by Chinese companies, but the number is probably very small. This is because 5L means 5 characters in a Chinese company’s trading name, which is rare.
Yes, Chinese domains are taking a fast pace for the recent few years… As the Internet started many years later after the USA who uses dot com..I am a Chinese and have been registering many Chinese names since 1998, now I have received lots of interested parties in my Chinese domains
Hello Hui. You had vision. Did you register Pinyin names?