Here are the most popular Chinese brands outside of China

While China may still be known as the “world’s factory,” its actual brands have struggled mightily to catch on abroad, forever handicapped by negative perceptions towards “Made in China” products. However, that may be something that is destined to change in the next few years.

British multinational advertising group WPP and its research arm Kantar Millward Brown has released a study aimed at determining what the hottest Chinese brands are outside of the Middle Kingdom. For its “BrandZ Top 50 Chinese Global Brand Builders 2018” report, the agency’s researchers combined Google search data with an online survey of 395,000 consumers in the US, UK, Japan, Australia, Spain, Germany, and France asking their about their awareness and perceptions of Chinese brands.

The list starts out pretty strong, topped by Lenovo, the world’s largest PC maker, followed by Huawei, the world’s second-largest maker of smartphones, and Alibaba, which is competing with Amazon for the title of the biggest e-commerce company on earth.

Next comes, Xiaomi, the up-and-coming smartphone maker that is also increasingly branching into consumer electronics, followed by the state-owned Air China.

But, after those top five, you start to get to names that most are likely much less familiar with. Here’s the top ten:

1. Lenovo (consumer electronics)

2. Huawei (consumer electronics)

3. Alibaba (e-commerce)

4. Xiaomi (consumer electronics)

5. Air China (airlines)

6. Elex (mobile gaming)

7. Anker (consumer electronics)

8. Haier (home appliances)

9. Hisense (home appliances)

10. Cheetah Mobile (mobile gaming/internet services).

And here are few more notables further down the list:

11. DJI (smart devices)

13. Bank of China (banks)

14. China Eastern (airlines)

26. Oppo (consumer electronics)

28. Vivo (consumer electronics)

31. Tencent (mobile gaming/internet services)

32. Great Wall Motors(cars)

37. Baidu (internet services)

39. UnionPay (payment networks)

41. ICBC (banks)

42. Hainan Airlines (airlines)

43. Geely Auto (cars)

44. JD.com (e-commerce)

47. Spring Airlines (airlines)

In the introduction to the ranking, David Roth, CEO of The Store WPP, notes that Chinese brands are now becoming increasingly concerned with building “innovative, higher-value global brands,” helping to reduce the number of people who think of “Made in China” as a pejorative term.

However, there is — obviously — still a lot of work that needs to be done before international consumers start to associate products carrying Chinese branding with reliability and innovation.

According to Doreen Wang, global head of BrandZ at Kantar Millward Brown, only 21% of global consumers think Chinese brands are innovative while just 14% think they are unique.

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