jbradfor Posted July 7, 2011 at 02:20 PM Report Posted July 7, 2011 at 02:20 PM (edited) Inspired by this thread, I'm wondering what are the top 50-ish Chinese companies "everyone" in China knows about. Not necessarily the biggest companies (I could find that on my own), but the ones people have heard about. So likely heavy on the consumer goods and food. LATER EDIT: To keep track of which ones are mentioned, I'll be editing this space to add ones that are mentioned below. Agricultural Bank of China -- 农业银行 -- one of the four major state-owned banks Alibaba -- 里巴巴 -- Hangzhou-based private company specializing in B2B, B2C, and C2C on-line commerce Baidu -- 百度 -- web services Bank of China (BoC) -- 中国银行 -- one of the four major state-owned banks BYD -- 比亚迪 -- Rechargeable battery producer, automobile manufacturer, and mobile phone manufacturer CCTV -- 中国中央电视台 -- media Changhong -- 长虹 -- TV and electronic appliance manufacturer China Construction Bank -- 建设银行 -- one of the four major state-owned banks China Mobile -- 中国移动 -- one of the three major mobile phone service providers China Telecom-- 中国电信 -- one of the three major mobile phone service providers China Unicom -- 中国联通 -- one of the three major mobile phone service providers Dangdang -- 当当网 -- B2C e-commerce website First Automobile Works (FAW) -- 中国一汽 -- Automobile maker Foxconn -- 富士康 -- Taiwanese-based contract manufacturer Gome -- 国美 -- electronics retailer Haier -- 海尔 -- household appliance manufacturer Huawei -- 华为技术有限公司 -- networking and telecommunications equipment manufacturer Industrial and Commercial Bank of China -- 工商银行 -- one of the four major state-owned banks Jiu Gui Huasheng -- 酒鬼花生 -- peanuts Kang Shifu -- 康師傅 -- Taiwan-based manufacturer of instant noodles (and other food products) Kingsoft -- 金山 -- Software developer Kingway -- 金威 -- Guangdong-government-owned beer maker (Heineken owns 21%) Maotai -- 茅台酒 -- Type of 白酒 produced by the Guizhou-based state-owned 貴州茅台酒 company Meng Niu -- 蒙牛 -- Inner-Mongolia-based manufacturer of dairy products Lenovo -- 联想 -- PC manufacturer (bought IBM's PC division) Lining -- 李宁 - clothing brand Qingdao -- 青岛 -- beer Petrochina -- 中国石油 -- petroleum company (listed arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation) Quanjude -- 全聚德 -- famous peking duck chain, established 1864 Sina -- 新浪 -- Shanghai-based company that runs Sina.com, the largest Chinese-language infotainment web portal Sinopec -- 中国石化 -- petroleum Snow -- 雪花 -- beer maker Suning Electrical Appliance Stores -- 苏宁 -- retailer TCL -- TCL -- electronics manufacturer Tencent -- 腾讯 -- ISP, also creator of QQ Three Deer -- 三鹿 -- infamous for involvement in the melamine-in-milk scandal 360buy.com -- 京东商城 -- eCommerce website Vanke -- 万科 -- Shenzhen-based real estate company, China's largest residential real estate developer Wahaha -- 哇哈哈 -- food and beverage company Wang Lao Ji -- 王老吉 -- herbal tea Wuliangye -- 五粮液 -- beverage maker. Company name and primary product is both "五粮液" ZTE -- 中兴通讯 -- networking and telecom 工行 -- short for 中国工商银行 东航 -- short for 中国东方航空公司 建行 -- short for 中国建设银行 Edited July 11, 2011 at 01:59 PM by jbradfor Quote
prateeksha Posted July 7, 2011 at 04:32 PM Report Posted July 7, 2011 at 04:32 PM Huawei is one Electronics company which has branches here in India too. They even offer scholarships to send students to China for degree studies. Quote
WestTexas Posted July 7, 2011 at 07:04 PM Report Posted July 7, 2011 at 07:04 PM a few off the top of my head: Baidu Tencent Liming Wang Lao Jie Kang Shifu Meng Niu Snow beer (雪花) Qingdao beer Obviously there are certain western brands everyone knows like KFC but I suppose you weren't asking about those Quote
jbradfor Posted July 7, 2011 at 08:01 PM Author Report Posted July 7, 2011 at 08:01 PM Thanks! That's exactly the stuff I'm looking for. I haven't heard of most of those companies. For the ones I didn't know (or didn't know the name in characters), I looked up the company names in characters, and added a short blurb on what they do. Hope others may find this useful Tencent -- 腾讯 -- ISP, also creator of QQ Liming -- Liming Heavy Industry ??? -- http://www.break-day.com/cn/ ??? Wang Lao Jie -- do you mean Wang Lao Ji? 王老吉?? Kang Shifu -- 康師傅 -- Taiwan-based manufacturer of instant noodles (and other food products) Meng Niu -- 蒙牛 -- Inner-Mongolia-based manufacturer of dairy products More? Quote
imron Posted July 7, 2011 at 11:37 PM Report Posted July 7, 2011 at 11:37 PM 国美 苏宁 (both giant retailers) TCL 海尔 长虹 (tv and electronic appliance manufacturers) ZTE (中兴通讯)(networking and telecom stuff) 李宁 - clothing brand 中国移动 中国联通 中国电信 - the three major phone networks. 全聚德 - famous peking duck chain Quote
xiaocai Posted July 8, 2011 at 12:03 AM Report Posted July 8, 2011 at 12:03 AM 四大国有银行： 中国银行，工商银行，建设银行，农业银行。 简称： 中行，工行，建行，农行。 1 Quote
Peter2010 Posted July 8, 2011 at 12:56 AM Report Posted July 8, 2011 at 12:56 AM Sinopec 中国石化 Petrochina 中国石油 Quote
abcdefg Posted July 8, 2011 at 01:57 AM Report Posted July 8, 2011 at 01:57 AM Suning Electrical Appliance Stores -- 苏宁电器。 I've seen them everywhere in China. As far as electrical appliances themselves go, Haier is a "household name" through all their TV advertising if nothing else. 海尔家电。 In a different category, beverages, I'd say 王老吉 Wang Lao Ji herbal tea, sold in those distinctive red cans, must be known to most every Chinese person. And to go with the 王老吉 you have 酒鬼花生，Jiu Gui Huasheng (peanuts.) EDIT: I now see that some of these were already mentioned. Quote
WestTexas Posted July 8, 2011 at 04:38 AM Report Posted July 8, 2011 at 04:38 AM Li Ming is not right, it is actually Li Ning (李宁). This is a sportsware company started by a Chinese Olympian, who named the company after himself. Quote
gougou Posted July 8, 2011 at 06:01 AM Report Posted July 8, 2011 at 06:01 AM How strict are you with your definition of "everybody"? I bet for most of these companies, there'll be millions (possibly hundreds of millions) of farmers who've never heard of them. If you want to include them, a company like Qingdao would probably fare much better than, say, Tencent (where I wouldn't be surprised if even a lot of the people using QQ didn't realize that was the actual company name...) Also, here's a list of the most valuable brands, which should be somewhat correlated to brand awareness: http://www.china.org.cn/top10/2011-06/30/content_22895450.htm Quote
maxdmind Posted July 8, 2011 at 07:09 AM Report Posted July 8, 2011 at 07:09 AM Lenovo-联想 PC brand Quote
imron Posted July 8, 2011 at 07:21 AM Report Posted July 8, 2011 at 07:21 AM 三鹿 - everyone should know this one, though more for it's infamy than anything else. It was the melamine in the milk company. Quote
abcdefg Posted July 8, 2011 at 08:15 AM Report Posted July 8, 2011 at 08:15 AM I'm wondering what are the top 50-ish Chinese companies "everyone" in China knows about. Perhaps not rural farmers living way back "off the grid," but most city dwellers would recognize the names of the major Chinese banks and the names of the major Chinese arilines. Natives would also recognize their abbreviated forms, as used in daily speech, such as 东航 in place of 中国东方航空公司 and 建行 in place of 中国建设银行。 Quote
rob07 Posted July 8, 2011 at 08:23 AM Report Posted July 8, 2011 at 08:23 AM Related question - what percentage of Chinese people who see all those "汇丰 HSBC" signs would know that HSBC stands for Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, or at least know the bank was founded in China? Not obvious at all, particularly if you think of 香港 as being Xiang Gang rather than Hong Kong. I remember reading a while back that at one time, all of the top 5 largest banks in the world by market capitalisation were Chinese, apart from the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation - made me laugh. Quote
skylee Posted July 8, 2011 at 10:40 AM Report Posted July 8, 2011 at 10:40 AM rob07, take a look at this thread, where people pointed out that HSBC was British. Well HSBC calls itself the World's local bank. Quote
jbradfor Posted July 8, 2011 at 03:04 PM Author Report Posted July 8, 2011 at 03:04 PM Thanks all! That's exactly what I'm looking for. I updated my OP to include all the information, and if you think of more please post. How strict are you with your definition of "everybody"? Yeah, that's a problem, and the reason for my use of "". Basically, if your "typical Chinese-speaking foreigner" would be likely to run into it, I'd like to know about it. Quote
BaoMiHua Posted July 8, 2011 at 03:39 PM Report Posted July 8, 2011 at 03:39 PM This evening I spent lot of time to study on this issue, luckily there happened to be a beer festival here so it helped little bit with my studies which was mainly focused on beer brands. So here is my list of beers “everybody” should know, except maybe the last 3 ones not that famous in china, but I included them anyway as a change for us all to learn something new! There might be more still, but for some reason I can’t now think of them... B) 雪花 xuehua 金威 kingway 青岛 qingdao 珠江 zhujiang 黄河 huanghe 百威 budweiser 燕京 yanjing 喜力 heineken 嘉士伯 carlsberg 蓝带 blue ribbon 哈啤 harbin 崂泉 laoquan 克罗纳 corona 涅瓦河 newell 皇家伯爵 arcobräu 捷克黑山 černá hora Quote
imron Posted July 9, 2011 at 12:42 AM Report Posted July 9, 2011 at 12:42 AM 金山 - Kingsoft - software developer famous for popup mouse-over translation application, an office suite and several online games Quote
GaHanna Posted July 9, 2011 at 02:55 AM Report Posted July 9, 2011 at 02:55 AM Remember the World Cup: <maybe someone can edit and show image for the computer illiterate> Quote
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